Because every kid deserves a healthy dad

Three weeks in

2010-06-04T07:14:00.002-04:00

So the good, I've lost 20 lbs in the first three weeks that I've been a member of TOPS.

That still leaves me at an astoundingly high number that no human ever weigh, but I'm ok with that.

I'm not making any progress this week, which sucks. I mean, I knew I'd hit a slow patch soon, but from 7 lbs a week to 0 this half week is more than a little depressing.

All in all things are going well. TOPS hasn't sent me my membership info yet, and frankly I think the meetings are the only real benefit I'm going to get from that program. I plan to stick to my own food-plan so long as it is working for me. The TOPS national encourages this thing using "exchanges" like, for lunch you get one meat exchnage and two vegitable exchanges, etc. I'm pretty happy just counting calories and trying to have a vague sense of balance for now, when I lose some of the extra weight or (yeah right) I'm ever at a point that I'm just maintaining a weight instead of struggling to lose, then I'll focus more on balance and vitamins and such.

Current weight - 403
Current loss to date - 20
Goal - 220
distance to goal - 183

TOPS update

2010-05-12T21:57:00.002-04:00

Ok, so the TOPS meeting came and went...and the highlights are:

- I actually made myself go

- I was the only male in attendance (not surprising I guess), and only one of two under 50 (more surprising) with the median age falling in the late 60's at least.

- The people (about 15 or so) were very friendly, and seemed supportive, and they had some fun ideas. Perhaps a little preachy (as in bible, not preachy about diets....for example we said the lord's prayer to close the meeting), but I can live with that.

- No focus/emphasis on any specific diet plan, the group is much more of a support group/social gathering than any sort of learning experience.... but that's really what I wanted most out of it, not another diet plan. I have a diet plan that I think works for me, if I have the motivation to keep to it.

I'm still feeling mostly desperate and depressed... but maybe with a hint of optimism.

2010

2010-05-10T20:36:00.004-04:00

Well, I've deleted the porn ads and the other spam from my comments.

And I'm going to check out a local TOPS chapter tomorrow.

I think I may be ready to try yet again (what is this, take 72 or so?)

Abby's almost 2 now. If I want to be around to see her turn 4 I don't have any time left to waste. So I've got to be all in.

When I've temporarily resurrected this blog in the past I've been overly optimistic and hopeful. Now I'm just desperate. So I'll do what I can, what worked, if briefly in the past.

And more than the blog, more than the foodlog, or the "points" or any goals or challenges I set for myself, what worked in the past was a competition. I had a friendly e-mail wager going for most lost pounds, and by god I won it. Competition is what I was lacking every time I tried to restart the blog or tried to restart my food log.

That's where TOPS comes in. I stumbled on this today, and sure enough there's a Chillicothe chapter, and they meet on Tuesdays.

I'll report back here on how it goes.

crazy crazy weekend

2008-05-20T22:34:00.005-04:00

Ok, so I hardly know where to begin. This has been an excessively up and down weekend. I've been all over the place mentally, nutrition-ally, and even physically.

The short version - since my last post I've [in no particular order and no implications should be read into the order that anything appears] ....

had two flat tires in my car (the second one while I still had the spare on, forcing me to have the car towed across town to the tire store), been away for my office's semi-annual retreat, had my 6th anniversary, found out that someone I care about has cancer, got drunk for the first time in at least a year, went to a play at the Z-ville Community Theater, finished preparing the garden bed, started reading a fairly exciting new novel, said goodbye to a coworker who left us for another office, gotten sick, learned a couple of excellent new recipes, tried to help console a friend who was going through a relationship issue, visited with my parents and my in-laws, had dinner at the restaurant my in-laws have just opened in my home town, and generally have been running myself ragged.

Some of these require stories, and we'll get to them when I have time to do them justice.

I won't post any details on the person with cancer, because its not my story to share... I will only say it isn't me or Liz. I only mention it at all because the news itself has had a substantial impact on my mental state this weekend. I haven't really processed exactly how this news has or will continue to impact me, and am wholly unprepared to even attempt to put it into words at this stage. I guess I'm still somewhat in shock over the whole thing.

For now, I'm here, I survived my weekend, and I'm still on plan. I haven't done a very good job of recording (bad), but I think I've stayed under on points all but one day. The dozen or so drinks I had Friday clearly count as the worst thing I had to "eat" for the weekend, though the blizzard I split (different day) with a coworker is a close second. Beyond those two things I am proud of how closely I followed my plan and how well I chose foods.

One thing I had that was new to me and I will definitely try to replicate was a squash and zucchini salad. It was basically slices of raw (very young) yellow squash and zucchini with red onions, tomato wedges, and apple slices with a sweet, lemony, and herb-y vinaigrette. Think pasta salad only replacing the pasta with squash and zucchini, making it lower calorie and higher protein. And very tasty too.

Monday evening I tried my hand at homemade fajitas, which were quite tasty. I'd never tried doing them at home... but they turned out a lot healthier than going out because 1) I controlled what went in them, and limited the oils (and only used good oils at that) and cut out the salt altogether. I also did not sit and have a basket of chips and salsa waiting for my meal to come to the table either.

The other thing I did this weekend was to come up with my new longer term goal. Programwide (aka office retreat) happens every six months. When I started this blog I only had about six weeks before Programwide, and therefore hadn't made much progress yet. Then I completely fell apart and went to the Spring programwide heavier than I was at the one last Fall. So this Fall my goal is to show up noticeably ~~slimmer~~ er, make that less fat. To that end, I figure I need to aim to lose an average of 10 pounds a month, counting from the 15th of May.

So, I'll weigh in again tomorrow morning, and set my individual month goals accordingly.

the never ending cycle of mowing

2008-05-13T22:12:00.003-04:00

So I've kept my food log for a week, and stayed under point limits for each day this week!

Tonight I had to mow, a job that I tend to put off as long as I think I can get away with before one of my neighbors decides to burn down my yard and be done with it.

It seems like everyone on the street has a different attitude towards mowing. My neighbor to one side has about as much grass in their entire lot as we have in our front yard, and they tend to mow at least three times for every one time that we do. Sometimes I'll see him out mowing literally two days in a row. Then our neighbors on the other side hire their mowing done by some guy who looks to be about undergrad age, and he does a very meticulous job, but only about as often as Liz and I do ours. Some people trim their sidewalks, others don't, there's one guy I frequently see out sweeping the street in front of their house.... which may be commendable except he just sweeps everything one house up or down the street.

Growing up in the boonies, and then college and lawschool in housing that came with other people to do the yard work, these past two years have been the first time in my life that my community at large has an interest in what yard work I do and how I do it. Sometimes I think I'm over sensitive to this... like I'm paranoid that all my neighbors are going to hate me if I don't mow as often as they do, or if I plant the wrong kind of flowers. Either way... all will be forgiven in a few months... we have the best tomato garden on the block.

mmmm breakfast

2008-05-13T09:13:00.002-04:00

So I met with a client yesterday who insisted that the hotel she had stayed in the previous weekend had the most wonderful "incontinental" breakfast. ewww.

Another day under points yesterday, almost to a full week in a row :)

By far the worst thing I had yesterday was the Olive Garden breadsticks. I really intended not to have any, but they kept putting the dang things right in front of me. And once I had a taste of one it was down hill from there. Anyway, a breadstick is 3 points by itself, and I ended up having 3 of them. The meal I had was only 7 points! (apricot chicken with broccoli and asparagus, very tasty though the apricot was a little overly strong)

The other issue at lunch was that there was a small child who was absolutely screaming their head off the entire time we were there. I seemed to be the only person in the office (or in the restaurant for that matter) to be willing to just ignore it and enjoy my lunch. Everyone was talking about how stressful it made the meal and complaining, and other people (not in my group) applauded when the child's party left at the end of their meal (which was just rude, imho). Yes, the parents probably should have gotten a babysitter before going out to a nice restaurant with a child at that age, and yes, they probably should have given up and left more quickly... but it's a baby, babies cry, get over yourselves. Especially I thought it was odd the amount of whining done by those I know to be parents themselves. Shouldn't they be more or less used to baby screaming by now?

Though I guess the better way to look at it is that its a good sign that I will be able to keep calm when the baby inevitably throws a tantrum. Now, all I need to learn is how to make the child happy and stop crying :)

post weekend update

2008-05-12T11:37:00.003-04:00

At work, so have to make this short for now, just didn't want anyone thinking I'd disappeared again :)

So I made it through the weekend on plan as far as I can tell. Saturday I had about 5 points left over. Sunday I didn't count actual points, but did keep a list of what we had to eat and I'd say I was about 8 points under give or take.

My mom apparently didn't believe me that everybody would be busy for mother's day brunch, so when we got to the restaurant she was very surprised at the crowd, and decided we would go home for lunch instead. This worked out well for me because I've gotten pretty good at fixing healthy stuff at home, less so at ordering it out. So we got some deli stuff and veggies and fairly healthy sub buns (Whole wheat, no HFCS, no Trans) and salad stuff. Then we spent the rainy mother's day playing on my parent's new wii (I suck at the bowling, but did quite well on the golf and ok on the tennis).

My worst item for the weekend was a diet coke cupcake (chocolate cake mix and cherry coke zero), because I also gave in to the temptation of the pre-packaged cream cheese frosting to put on top, which is just about the worst substance on earth. (and one of the best, taste-wise)

Today's biggest challenge is the office trip out to Olive Garden for lunch. OG's website really needs to have more nutritional info ;(

eventful week

2008-05-09T22:44:00.002-04:00

I've managed to avoid any overwhelming hunger cravings this evening, and now it's past the time when I allow myself to eat anyway (I try not to eat within a couple of hours before sleep), so I think i managed to make it through the day with points left over again. I don't like it when I have to make such rough estimates, but you'll have that sometimes. All in all I'd say a B- on the day.

This coming week is going to be jammed packed for me. I'm off to my parents tomorrow for mother's day weekend. Then Thursday and Friday I'm off to my office's retreat (we do two days at a state park twice a year, I generally refer to it as programwide because all the offices in SEOLS attend). Programwide presents an interesting challenge in that there is generally very little by way of choice at meals, and Thursday evening is generally punctuated with excessive drinking. I am pretty sure I haven't had more than a single drink at a time since last August (alcohol is a killer when you're counting points, and I was never much of a drinker to begin with so that didn't go by the wayside when everything else did over the winter) but I may decide to relax that rule for a change, since it is a fairly unique event. And then Liz's parents are down from Toronto Saturday and Sunday, so we'll probably spend some time with them.

Then the big event coming up is Sunday, which is my sixth anniversary. Nothing really special planned, since most of our energy and time is devoted to getting ready for the baby right now, but hopefully we'll find something fun to do.

Liz and I have been fairly non-traditional when it comes to major gift giving couple events... we pretty much just get things for each other and ourselves as a couple when we want them, so getting a specific gift often seems somewhat anticlimactic. Of course, we've always been somewhat that way... Liz picked out her own engagement ring and we bought it together too. In part, Liz really doesn't like surprises, (woe to anyone who ever plans a surprise party for her and doesn't tell her in advance) and I'm never patient enough to actually bring a gift home, hide it for however long, and then give it to her on the day it was supposed to be given. Plus, when we bought the house we kind of decided it was our present to each other for the next thirty Christmases or so. I admit it does make me feel a little weird when friends ask me "so, what are you getting Liz for her birthday?" or the like. But for whatever reason it just sort of makes sense for us.

I guess this is the long way of saying that I won't be posting what we got for each other for our anniversary, because we probably won't.

my first slip up (this time around)

2008-05-09T18:41:00.003-04:00

Well two almost perfect days then a half perfect day, not a bad start all in all, right?

Ok, first the bad... I let a friend talk me into a fried fish dinner. It was for a good cause (a church youth group wanting to help make repairs to their church), and good company, but really bad food. I had fried fish and onion rings and baked beans. All was tasty, but not tasty enough to justify itself to me as anything but a bad idea.

The good news is that after some internet searching for as best I could estimate recipes and nutritional facts, I ended up with a couple of points left for the day, even including that meal. Now, it's not anywhere near bedtime yet, but I have six points yet to work with. So one one hand the food was really bad quality (like high sat/trans fats, sodium, etc), but on the other hand it shouldn't set the weight loss portion of my health improvement goals that far back, so long as I am really careful this evening. Of course, I couldn't measure the food served nor do I have exact numbers, so I'll just try to leave as many points on the table tonight as I can.

The other good side of this (at least for me) is that I came home and recorded it, I didn't just go back to ignoring my diet and my goals like I've done so many times the past few months. That's progress.

So, Tim, today I do have a clear cut "worst thing" for the day.

Anyway, off to wash wallpaper glue off the halway walls (I really wanted to work on the garden, but it's raining again... I think it's rained every single day this week... quite frustrating because I have plants I want to get into the ground.

learning all over again

2008-05-08T20:40:00.004-04:00

Another gold star day today, I've recorded everything and have 6.5 points left over.

I really don't know how I managed to keep to this restricted calorie intake and manage to find the energy to do two workouts a day before. Today I've barely had the energy to keep my eyes open. Granted, that's mostly lack of sleep more than lack of food, and it was a particularly long day at work, so that adds its little bit too. I really needed to get some housework done tonight, but it just didn't happen.

Things are still all "green light" for the baby to be born the end of June. We've got a little more than half the remodeling done that we need to complete, and I can see how that may be possible to finish, if I can find the energy to keep at it. I hope to get a lot done this Saturday. I did run into one wall that I can't do myself and I'm having to have a contractor come in to work on it, which kind of sucks due to timing, but can't be helped. Basically there's a brick wall in the room that will be the baby's room that needs rebuilt because the bricks got exposed to moisture sometime in the past (the roof has since been replaced) and are all crumbling apart. The biggest challenge at this point is finding a time when Liz or I can be home to let the guys in to work on it.

As for me I'm feeling completely freaked out about the whole having a child thing, and a little overwhelmed at work, but I think the decision to rededicate myself to my weight loss goals is helping alleviate some of my stress.

It's far too late for me to be able to catch up with the original "end obesity in 2008 plan." Basically i've gained almost every pound back that I lost before. I haven't decided on a long range goal now, but my short term goal will be just to get through the month still on plan, regardless of results, and then to add in returning to the gym in June.

----------------------------------
My official "restart" weight is 387.3

I'm down a grand total of 5.3 lbs since August 23, 2007. Which is just pathetic... I lost more than 12 lbs the first week on this diet, and was down more than 25 within the first month.

----------------------------------

Anyway, so a long way to go.

and 4 to spare

2008-05-07T22:02:00.004-04:00

First day counting points in a while, ended up with 4 left over for the day. That's really good for me, because usually when I rededicate myself to keeping tabs I go crazy and leave 10 or 15 points on the table, which inevitably leads me to rebelling as soon as the opportunity presents itself. I had a few moments today that were pretty hard, but for the most part I think I've set a sustainable pace.

Tonight was also the first completely home cooked meal I've found time to make in at least a month or more. I did grilled chicken (boneless skinless breast) with a pseudo-greek yogurt/garlic sauce (plain yogurt, garlic, sugar... cucumber is generally included, but I can't stand cucumber, so mine is without), corn on the cob, and a salad with lettuce, tomato, onion, yellow pepper and homemade greek salad dressing (olive oil, fresh oregano, lemon juice, garlic, sugar). I really enjoy cooking, and when I do cook my meals tend to be much more healthy and satisfying, it's just finding the time to do it that's the issue.

While I feel a sense of accomplishment for staying on plan for a day, this feels different than the times I've done the "good for a single day then back off the wagon" routine lately. I had fun with it today, and I haven't felt that since last October. Maybe it bodes well, maybe not, but my spirits are definitely lifted, and I'm more optimistic than I've been for a long time.

in denial

2008-05-06T23:41:00.002-04:00

I got a wake up call this morning from an unusual source... my credit card company. Aparantly my card got cloned or copied or something, because someone has been making charges that I know weren't either me or Liz. Fortunately the card company recognized the odd behavior and contacted me to confirm it (a lot of really big purchases at gas stations i've never used, is how I think they caught it).

Anyway, this led me to checking out both my cards for fraudulent transactions. And while the other card appears to be safe, I found myself forced to face my own bad behavior over the past month or so. So many fast food and other restaurants that I've just convinced myself - it's ok, you're having a rotten day, you deserve to be pampered. Its disgusting. No wonder I've put on so much weight. Why my clothes don't fit any more the way they did at the high point of this blog. Why am I still in denial about this??

And, in the off chance anybody still checks in here... I know i've promised time and time again "ok, this is it, I'm starting over today." So I won't waste my type.

I don't know what to think. Am I just a lost cause? Am I really this pathetic little boy who can't control his urges? Who wastes the money I don't have buying food I don't really want and really really don't need just because it is convenient or because I can get away with it? Don't I owe it to Liz and to my unborn child to spend the money on things that matter instead? To eat healthy options that I make at home which are more satisfying in the long term?

Is this finally rock bottom, or will I sink even lower? I want to bounce back, but sometimes wanting isn't enough.

I did make one small good step today.... I cleaned out the fridge of all the expired yogurt and lettuce and vegetables that I let rot, so now I can find the acutal food, so I have one fewer reason to cheat.

The other thing i've been doing well the past week or so is exercising, but really only because my housework has required it. Basically I'm creating a garden out of a stretch of the back yard that was a mix of grass and weeds, and I'm pulling up the weeds using a hand tool, so I really work up quite a sweat. And it feels good, which is surprising to me. I've never gotten a workout "high" before, but something about yard work is just fun.

The cynic in me says don't hold your breath, but I really will try to be back tomorrow.

a good day

2008-03-31T20:03:00.002-04:00

Today i am on plan, though i used up all of my points for the day. I have kept my food log, and even posted here. All in all, counts as a good day.

Now, if I can only do this a couple hundred days in a row, I might be getting somewhere.

long overdue

2008-03-30T22:26:00.002-04:00

So life has gotten very busy for me this month. We're down to less than three months until the baby is due, and haven't accomplished a third of the things that need doing before then.

So, a general update to get April started off on the right foot...

Diet specific:

I weighed in today at an abysmal 379.3. Some people need to pull themselves away from the scale, to let nature take its course when they're trying to lose weight. I definitely am not one of those people. If I let myself go even a few weeks without a weigh-in, things get bad really fast. I need the concrete reminder of both success and failure.

Exercising has been hit or miss. I got myself back into a rotation of morning workouts for a while, but haven't done that the past several days. My treadmill is surrounded by roaming gangs of misplaced furniture (see house remodeling, below) and as a result is mia. It is starting to warm up enough for outside walks though, which I've been trying to do when I get a chance. Mostly though I'm getting most of my physical activity through painting and other house projects.

As to counting my points, i'd say I'm at about 25% at best.

It seems like every time I log in here I'm touting my new resolution and plan. and then I quickly fall out of the plan and go two weeks hiding from my blog in shame. Well, this time lets just take this one step at a time.

Other Stuff:

Liz and the baby are healthy and on course as far as we know. No news is kind of good news on that front i guess.

The house is so not going to be ready when the kid is born though. We've got about 2/3 of the wallpaper removed (and I think all of the wallpaper that had mold on it), but I've only started painting one room. Every step I begin on this project takes at least a week longer than I think it will, and it is has really taken a toll on my stress levels. It will be worth it in the end, I'm sure, and I am happy with the quality of my results to date if not the quantity.

The little gray kitten I mentioned in my last post has become a member of our family. His name is Harold (after the owner of the Purple Crayon). He's about six months old now, and the vet gave him a clean bill of health. Our older male cat (about 3 yrs old) has taken to him as a big brother to kid brother, but our female (about 7) is expressing an excessive amount of displeasure, so we're having to keep them separate for the time being.

I guess that's all that's going on here. Here's hoping i'll be back again soon.

It's snowing cats and dogs.... well cats anyway

2008-03-11T00:01:00.005-04:00

So I am proving yet again that I'm no good at this blogging thing :) Though on the bright side things have been going fairly well for me the past couple of weeks... I just haven't had anything to say.

I've tried in the past to make this blog too content specific, I think. By that I mean I've only posted news, comments, whatnot that were specifically related to my weight loss struggles. I'm going to try relaxing on that rule a bit, in part because I've had several moments of late when I wanted to write in a more general interest/thoughts sort of blog. So, I think I will be using this outlet for more of that as I go forward.

----------

This has been an unusual winter for us in Southern Ohio. Twice in the past month it has been 60 degrees or more one day, and then snowing and in the mid twenties the next. This past weekend was one of those, with nearly t-shirt weather on Thursday and then a honest to god blizzard starting Friday and ending Saturday. Nobody I know was in any traffic accidents or the like, which is somewhat amazing to be honest. Liz decided to stay in Columbus for the weekend rather than risking the round trip (its about an hour and a half each way in good weather). And then today it was back up over 50 again. The rivers around here already were on the point of flooding last week, I am a bit worried about what will happen if all this snow melts too fast (especially if we get the rain they're predicting for tomorrow. Here in town we're safe enough (Chillicothe installed pretty impressive floodwalls after the last time the river flooded the town, umpteen years ago) but some of the areas just downriver from town already have swamps where their back yards used to be.

And we may be adopting yet another cat. I came home from work and found Liz with this very friendly little kitten (prob. 4 months old or so).

We've done everything we can think of to get the word out incase anyone is missing him, and canvased a block or so around our house. So if nobody shows up looking for him we will probably be adding him to our household in a few weeks. In the mean time we've set up a temporary shelter for him in our sunporch, and he seems to be pretty happy back there. Our older cat is going to have a rough year though... she didn't like it at all when we brought home a new kitten last time it happened, and this time she'll probably just be getting used to that change when our baby will be born. The weird thing is that he really looks like a younger version of our newer cat (Oscar), who we also took in as a stray when he was a kitten. It's entirely possible that he's a great-great nephew or something. He's gray where as Oscar is brown, but they have the same striping pattern, and vary similar faces. And some very similar personality traits as well (both are climbers rather than jumpers, that sort of thing.) Obviously we'll never know for sure that they're related, but it seems likely enough. They did both show up on our doorstep after all ... just a few years apart ;)

difficult day

2008-02-24T23:42:00.002-05:00

So today I was way under on points, but not entirely by choice. We went to Z-ville to hang out with Liz's parents who were in town for the weekend, which usually is a bad sign for over-eating. But today I had a very healthy breakfast before leaving the house (Kashi crunch cereal with yogurt instead of milk, and a banana) at 8:30... which is very good for me, as I skip breakfast far too often. But then I didn't have anything else to eat until about 5 pm, which is very bad. So while I didn't go over on calories for the day, I did a lousy job of balancing out my day, which is vital to my being able to stick it out for the long run.

But now I'm home again, so tomorrow I have power over what I choose to do. I am going to choose to have breakfast (maybe another bowl of Kashi... that was very good this morning), and a healthy lunch, and a healthy dinner.

All in all I'd say a A for intentions today but a B- in execution.

Sometimes I think it'd be easier if we could just have do-overs ;)

day two

2008-02-22T21:09:00.001-05:00

Ok, so really can't think of anything to say today, just want to get into the habit of posting again :)

Day one take 2

2008-02-21T19:16:00.003-05:00

Ok, so i've lost track of what week i'm on. And i've lost track of how many times I've though I was going to be back on track and end up fizzling out after a day of good effort.

So I'm not getting back on track.

I'm starting over.

Today has been a good day and a bad day. The good - I've kept my food journal, I've written in the blog, and I used the treadmill. The bad - my food journal is not the shining example of virtue that I need it to be.

Using the treadmill was something of an accomplishment. I mean, I think i've mentioned several times that my wife and I are stripping all the wallpaper from the house in order to repaint in preperation for the baby in June. So that means that furniture is everywhere, and not at all where it should be. And the treadmill kind of got burried in all the moving around. Now its not.

Tomorrow morning - I am getting up and using the treadmill before work. And I am keeping my food journal.

I was in some ways overly harsh with myself in the past couple of months, but in other ways overly easy. I felt sorry for myself and that I would never get back on plan. But I kept thinking of my down time as just that - down time. Well, it wasn't. I wasn't taking a break, I had completely given up. That attempt is over. Now a new one begins.

Day 1.

getting my whole life in shape

2008-02-08T20:31:00.000-05:00

Usually if your computer won't boot up properly, its a problem with the hardware or the operating system. Occasionally though, its the keyboard cable. I've spent a lot of time asking myself why I'm failing at this diet thing. Why i'm breaking all the rules.

I've had a good week this week. And a lot of time to think. And I got to thinking that perhaps the problem wasn't so obvious. Maybe all the other stuff that was wrong with my life lately was a cause, not just a symptom.

So i've focused some time an attention to getting things under control at work... And after a lot of effort and some very long days, i'm more on top of my paperwork and organization than I have been in at least a year. This week was also an annual review for me, and it was more positive than I expected. So I'm more happy and less stressed out at work.

More importantly, though less in my control, we had a positive ultrasound on Tuesday. I can admit to myself now that I was extremely worried about that. But everything is good on that front as well.

So now I have more headspace to refocus my efforts on my diet/exercise. I had a workout at the gym this evening (my first in longer than I want to think about), and while I'm feeling extra beat, I'm proud of myself for just getting out there. I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm feeling optimistic, but perhaps just a bit hopeful and excited to get back on the horse at long last.

I think my keyboard is plugged in properly now. Let's try rebooting.

I can't figure out what to say

2008-01-28T23:41:00.000-05:00

I've been trying to write this entry for days. And I haven't come up with anything that seems appropriate. That seems anything other than whinny. And truth is, that's kind of how I feel.

Right now I have so much on my mind. Nothing is going quite right, and most of it is my own stupid fault, one way or another.

Limiting my self-pity to terms relevant to this blog.... I feel like an absolute failure. Yeah, I could put a softer spin on it, but it'd be at least half a lie. Some days only the guilt of needing to post something on the blog is the only thing that keeps me even thinking of my plans. My oh so perfect idealism of a few months ago. I go to bed every night convinced I'm back on path, that tomorrow will be the day. And some days I'm actually on plan. But then it all falls apart again.

To be fair, when I'm off plan, I'm nowhere as atrocious to myself as I was before this blog. I have somewhat better instincts now. But I'm not making progress. I'm not making myself proud, I'm not improving. I'm falling farther and farther and farther behind.

So am I wasting my time? I don't think so. I won't give up completely. I won't. I just have to keep trying.

One of these days, I have to do it right.

grumpy

2008-01-23T22:17:00.000-05:00

I like to think I'm reasonably intelligent. I know that it is better to under-pay on tax withholding throughout the year than to overpay and get a refund.

But this is the second year in a row my employer screwed up my taxes to the point I have to pay more than a thousand this April (ok, so this year it was actually Liz's employer, but we file together so same result). And its hard to see it a coming out way ahead in the long run, though on some level I know I am.

So I'm a bit grumpy today, so I'll sign off before I become contagious. :(

where i've been (end of week 22)

2008-01-22T22:18:00.000-05:00

This has been a real up and down week for me. I haven't gotten all of my workout in, and I can't say that i did a very good job of keeping track of my points, though moving in the right direction on that front.

Today in particular was hard, as I spent the day in Court. All day trials are always a challenge, and we didn't even get done with the case, so I have another full day scheduled for a week from today. And just to ensure maximum emotional drainage on my part, it is a particularly ugly custody fight. On the plus side, I've been working on this case for over a year, and it is a relief to be one step closer to putting it behind me.

But I have been doing a lot of work around the house that somewhat replaces the workouts, so that has helped. We've made real strides on the wallpaper job, though I've discovered that scrubbing the wall of wallpaper paste residue is much less fun even than removing the wallpaper itself.

And everything is so far so good on the baby front, so keep your fingers crossed for me.

Anyway, so I'm down 1.3 on the week, but realistically I'd say I'm still holding pretty much steady. I don't really feel in the zone.

So this week's goals are not number related. This week my goal will be to err on the side of over-blogging, to try and hold myself accountable the way I promised to be when I first started this blog.

Tomorrow: reintroduction for those joining me from the Healthy Start Challenge.

First Tuesday (aka end of week 21)

2008-01-15T21:28:00.001-05:00

So today is a new start for the blog, as I post my opening salvo in sorts to the Healthy You Challenge. I'm hoping that I can convince myself that this is the big kick off to the year for me, and that 2008 will be marked by great strides forward.

Current Weight: 363.5 (yes, going the wrong way from last week again !!) :(

Current goal: back down to 350 by the end of February.

Current Outlook: Pessimistic.

End of week 20

2008-01-10T11:31:00.000-05:00

Another holding pattern sort of week for me, as I come in slightly up again at 362.1 :(

Because I've finally gotten around to signing up for the Healthy You Challenge (sorry to be so slow!), and it's set up to a Tuesday report-in date, Week 21 will only have five days, and my end of the week reports will now be switching to Tuesdays. I'm hoping this will also get me posting more often and with more substance, as I'll probably have comments to make regarding what's going on over on the HYC blog.

If you're a health/weightloss/personal improvement blogger and you haven't signed up for the Healthy You Challenge.... what are you waiting for? Come and join up and make 2008 your best year ever!

Don't wallpaper a ceiling.

2008-01-06T23:18:00.000-05:00

So every time I think I'm going to have some free time to make a real post, I end up swamped in work.

This past week Liz and I discovered that we had some mold developing on some of our wallpaper. We've been wanting to be rid of the wallpaper in our house for ages, and now it had become a priority. So since Wednesday I've been spending all the time I'm not at work taking down layer upon layer of old paper.

If you're ever deciding between painting or wallpapering a wall that doesn't already have wallpaper... be kind to the next people to live in your house and paint! Pulling down wallpaper, i've found, is a messy and unrewarding job. Most especially, don't wallpaper a ceiling!! (all of the ceilings in our house have a double layer of wallpaper too).

Anyways, lifestyle wise its been a moderately good week so far, though yesterday I went out to the Olive Garden, which is less than ideal for me. I am disappointed that the clementine season seems to have ended rather abruptly though, as I am quite fond of them.

End of week 19

2008-01-03T07:47:00.000-05:00

New Year, new efforts.

The holidays did not go too well, I'm back up to 361.4. But I'm back on plan, back at it.

Have to run to work now, will do a real update this afternoon.

midweek 19

2007-12-30T23:43:00.000-05:00

So I didn't do a end of the week 18 to let my announcement stay at the top of the page for a few days, but now I need to get back to writing.

I was at 360.5 this morning, for whatever that's worth.

More tomorrow when I'm not so tired :)

A delayed christmas present, some assembly required

2007-12-26T08:41:00.000-05:00

So now that Christmas is over and the family's been told... Liz and I gave each other a christmas present that we can't unwrap until next June.

Liz is just over three months pregnant! All is going well so far ... That's all we really know at this stage, but details to be posted when we know them.

To answer the first questions that people always ask.... yes, this is our first child and no, we don't know the gender yet.

As to names, the front runners right now are Timothy Michael and either Abigail Elizabeth or Sarah Elizabeth.

How's that for a 100th post :)

middle of week 18

2007-12-23T08:03:00.000-05:00

So I've made some progress, so now I just need to hold steady through the holiday.

Today: 360.3

Down for week: 1.7

Down overall: 32.5

middling fair

2007-12-21T22:53:00.000-05:00

Some days I log in because I have something I want to say, something I want to talk about. I log in, type in a title, and go for it. Other days I just start writing for the sake of writing, and see where it takes me, and then force some sort of title at the end.

Guess which type of day this is :)

Today did not go as well as I would have liked. A coworker brought a bunch of baked sweets to work this morning, and I foolishly allowed myself a pumpkin doughnut. It was very good, but then again so not worth it. Then dinner tonight ended up being at Golden Corral as the new Olive Garden had a hour long wait (an Appalachian style buffet for those of you not familiar with it). On the bright side, I am mostly proud of the choices I made there.

My standard approach to buffets is to start with a big salad if there are any greens worth mentioning. Fortunately they had fresh spinach and spring mix, so that was a treat. The salad dressings left much to be desired, but I went with Italian which usually has more good fats and fewer additives than most. I really prefer a light (and no HFCS) catolina, but that's hard to find when you're out places. Then I had some corn, baked fish, and roasted turkey breast.

The bad - way too much food in total. The good - at least almost everything I had was a "power food" in abs diet parlance.

In the end, I guess I'd say today was an "off plan" day, but no worse than a middling day overall. I may not have met my ideals, but I didn't give up on them altogether as I have so many days in the past. And I was conscious of my decisions and their ramifications, an important step in retraining my mind and appetite.

Tomorrow I'm off to mom's family.

Oh, and if you're a sporadic reader, be sure to check back next Wednesday for big news.

christmas plans

2007-12-20T21:21:00.000-05:00

So today was a solid day, I've recorded everything and got out of the day with 2 points to spare.

Tomorrow starts the Christmas hurtles. Tomorrow my parents are coming down to Chilli, and we'll probably go out to the Olive Garden (just opened last weekend). Olive garden is one place where the food is generally less point friendly than I realize, so I will have to be careful.

Then Saturday is dinner with my mom's family. I probably will only try to roughly estimate calories at best on that day... everything home made the way grandma used to do it (because grandma is the one actually doing it in this case).

Sunday is just a normal day, and Monday should be fairly straight forward, food wise, though we're doing gift exchange with my parents.

Tuesday has at least two Christmas family meals, so another write off. But since everybody knows we'll be going to everybody else's thing, we may be able to get out somewhat less stuffed than normal. Then again, its Christmas... nobody has that much will power :)

I will try to post as regularly as I can, though I will be on the road a lot this weekend.

Hope everyone has safe travels and a happy holiday where appropriate. If you don't have a holiday coming up, well, have a good winter solstice tomorrow :)

week 17 - first weigh in

2007-12-20T06:38:00.000-05:00

So here it goes.

I was a little off on my estimate a couple of days ago. I've backtracked further than I could admit to myself. I'm back up to 362 even. So I'm up 19.4 from my low point on November 1, but still down 30.8 from where I started back in August. Surprisingly, I can still make my "End Obesity in 2008" goal if I get back on track at 2 lbs a week. I realize that is not very realistic, but I'm surprised that it isn't completely implausible yet.

Off to a good start today though. I did a workout on the treadmill, and now I'm off to find some breakfast (and I've already got the spreadsheet open and ready to go for week 18).

Goal for week 18: lose 1 lb despite Christmas parties, etc.

weigh in tomorrow

2007-12-19T21:11:00.001-05:00

Tomorrow I get to do a weigh in again, for the first time in quite some time. My new scale arrived today, and its all set up and ready to go.

I fully expect to be disappointed in myself tomorrow. What I hope to do is to see it as a motivator, not have a "ok, well this is just a big waste of time" type of response.

Week 17 is almost done.

So, in anticipation of a horrible weigh in tomorrow, what have I learned so far on this journey?

I've learned that I have to stay with it every single day. If I have to stray from the straight and narrow, I have to accept that, and go back to being good the very next meal. I can't allow myself to say, oh, I had a bad day yesterday, I'll just make it a whole weekend off, then I'll go back to being on plan.

I've learned that I need to keep posting, even when the news can only be bad. It is so much more fun to post positive results! It is fun to come on here when the number is trending down, down, down each week. But if I don't post bad weeks, how is the blog ever going to help?

I've learned that I need to be honest with myself. When the scale stopped working, I assumed I was more or less staying the same. Until that went on for a couple of weeks and I noticed less room in my clothes over time. I knew I was off plan! I knew that I had my fill of pizza at that office party, that I had a HFCS laden drink with that lunch. But I convinced myself that I was doing more good than bad, more positive decisions and fewer negative.

Tomorrow is going to be rough. I may feel like I want to give up. I am going to feel ashamed and disappointed in myself, and that I have let everybody down, most importantly myself.

Several weeks ago I said I need short, small goals so I can reach them and use the pride as a motivator.

Upcoming goals:

End of 2007 - down 1 lb. With all of the family gatherings and travel over the next week, I can't realistically expect to make much progress between now and the end of the month. But I can hope not to lose any more ground. Just doing that will require me to stick pretty firmly to plan for the week and a half.

End of January 2008 - down 15 from tomorrow's weigh in. If I am on plan, this should be easy, if I'm off plan, this is impossible. Therefore this goal is basically "get and stay on plan for January."

Then we'll see where to go from there.

not so good

2007-12-18T21:03:00.000-05:00

so today didn't go as well. Had to spend a lot longer on the road than I had expected for work, and in a higher stress situation than I had planned. Thats really no excuse, but there it is. So I ended up having a fairly not on plan lunch. I tried making up for it a bit at the gym, but such things never really equal out.

So i should get my new scale tomorrow. I'm guessing i'll weigh in at somewhere between 350 and 360, but we'll have to wait and see.

You're a mean one.....

2007-12-17T22:27:00.000-05:00

So a friend of mine must have gotten tired of me not having weigh-ins, and is sending me a scale as a Christmas gift. It should arrive Wednesday or so. Hopefully I won't break this one quite as quickly :) I do feel a little sheepish, we've been good friends for oh, nine years or so now, and I don't think i've ever gotten him a christmas gift...

In some ways, I confess I'm actually a bit of a Grinch. I mean I love Christmas lights and flowers and carols and parties and all that. (and of course all the unhealthy foods that goes without saying ;) ) I've got at least a little of Christmas decoration in more than half of the rooms of my house ... only time of the year I do anything that could even be considered decoration... including a nine foot + Christmas tree that I went out and cut myself. I'm really into the pageantry and the festive feeling and the cheeriness of Christmas.

But on the other hand, Liz and I haven't gotten each other Christmas gifts for the past three years (counting this year), we've only managed to send out Christmas cards one Christmas out of the six we've been married (twelve if you add in years dating). I still vaguely consider myself a protestant Christian (if only loosely affiliated at best) but I haven't attended a candlelight service or even church on Christmas Sunday of my own volition in nearly a decade.

In all, you could say I celebrate a rather selfish version of Christmas... I'm happy to expend the effort to put up a tree and a few lights, maybe sing a few songs... but everything I really enjoy about the holidays are the zero effort type of stuff. Watching old Christmas cartoons [btw, the reference the other day was to Santa Claus is Comin' to Town, the old claymation cartoon special], visiting with family, sitting in front of a Christmas tree and a fireplace or waking up to open presents and have hot cocoa.

Of course, I guess that's the way little kids see Christmas... maybe some people just never grow up.

another solid day

2007-12-16T22:24:00.000-05:00

That makes two days.

The down side to committing to writing in the blog is that I have to come up with something to say. Today was fairly non-eventful. The bad weather that seems to have hit most of the northern half of the country has missed us more or less completely... I think all of the little snow we got yesterday is gone by now.

The only really external challenge this week should be Saturday, with a Christmas gathering for my mom's side of the family. Then of course Christmas eve and Christmas day next week. But I guess the bright side of not having much time off at Christmas is not being at home for a full week with all of the Christmas leftovers. I'll go, have one meal, and get to leave everything behind, and get back to my regular schedule pretty quickly.

So today I've proven to myself I can stick to this for a weekend. Now lets see how I do with a work week.

a tower made of a million bricks...

2007-12-15T20:55:00.000-05:00

Some victories come in the form of winner takes all, do or die. Others are simply the sum of a series of small victories. Today was a small victory for me. I've recorded all of my food for the day, stayed under on points, did not violate any of my cardinal rules, did my exercise, and even got some of the housework done. And if I do the same tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, the large victories that I need in my life are all but inevitable. I just need to stay focused on that one brick at a time, and I'll get there.

I can't say that I feel as happy or excited as I had hoped to feel after today. But I am glad that I've made this first step towards getting my goals back on track. And tomorrow will be day 2.

My goal for tomorrow, repeat today's positive steps, clean the refrigerator, and then go grocery shopping so that I have some healthy options in the house. Then its back to work on Monday.

December 15 (2) - good morning again

2007-12-15T15:49:00.000-05:00

So the day hasn't been nearly as productive as I originally planned. I got some straightening done, but ran out of steam at around noon, so went back to sleep for a few hours.

We've had a inch or two of snow, enough that the grass is covered, but the sidewalks have already melted clean. More snow to the north though, so my parents aren't coming down after all.

Anyway, off to find myself a very late lunch before I start munching on everything in sight :(

December 15 - good morning

2007-12-15T09:54:00.000-05:00

So the day's off to a good start. I've done my treadmill and had a light breakfast (Kashi crunch cereal... I highly recommend it).

My parents may or may not be coming down this evening, depending on the weather, so I need to do some straightening today.

Other than that, my goals for today are to finish putting up the Christmas lights, do a load of laundry, and take out the recycling. I also need to go to the kitchen supply store for a last Christmas shopping item.

And staying on plan.

week 16 report in

2007-12-15T00:59:00.000-05:00

Harsh reality time. I still don't have a scale that works (it wants to report me at 327 lbs). Based on how my clothes are fitting and how I feel, I think a more realistic estimate is 358 or so. This is unacceptable.

I may take some time to try to figure out why this has happened. But I've been doing that now for six weeks, and I haven't found any clue. So as of right now, the last six weeks are deemed irrelevant.

Saturday, December 15th is going to be the day that I get back on track.

I've gone from frustrated to angry to self pitying to depressed over the past several weeks. Now I'm just determined. I am going to get back on track.

Step 1 - blog to excess.

I don't know why, but going easy on myself about recording and blogging always leads to being a slacker in other ways. Skipping exercise, buying a bottle of pop because I have a headache, having whatever I want at the office Christmas party because it's a Christmas party. Indulging in cravings.

I don't even know if I have any more than two readers left at this point. If I do, it is because those of you who read this are much more loyal than I deserve, and I won't forget it. Tomorrow I'm off, and I'm going to spend the day on house work. During the course of the day, I will blog, at a minimum, every time I have any food. I probably won't keep up that pace next week, but I will write once a day until I am back on pace.

Step 2 - resurect the food chart.

I haven't kept a full day on my food chart since the last day I finished a full week on plan, six weeks ago. That ends. It simply does not make sense that I am willing to lose sleep for computer games or the like, and not to take the time to better myself.

Step 3 - read blogs and post comments

Of all of the things I've done wrong over the past several weeks, the one that causes me the strongest feeling of shame is that I mostly stopped reading other blogs. I've already started the process of getting caught up with my blog-land friends, who I hope will welcome me back into the fold.

"You put one -- foot in front -- of the other and -- soon you'll be wal -- king cross the --- floororor." (major bonus points if you get the reference)

week 15 and counting

2007-12-06T21:35:00.000-05:00

So this was a pretty good week. Scale is still acting screwy, so no weigh in. It's been a while since I've had anything that I felt noteworthy to mention here, but a lot has happened just in the last day or so....

First thing, we got our Christmas tree yesterday and got it set up. We ended up with a nine foot cannan fir, which is the largest i've ever gotten to put up. We got the lights on the tree, but no ornaments yet, and unfortunately Liz and I work fairly incompatible schedules the next couple of days, so we may not get it finished finished until Saturday. One down side was that the farm we go to raised their prices pretty significantly since last year, so that was a bit frustrating.

Yesterday was also the first snow of the winter for us. Only about ankle deep, but enough to look pretty and to be a small hassle on the roads (mostly because of other people not knowing how to handle it).

And tomorrow is my birthday :) We had a little pizza party at work today for lunch, and I over indulged a bit.

So 15 weeks into the project, what have I accomplished? I had 10 really good weeks, followed by about two miserable weeks, and 3 weeks of more or less treading water. I'm going to make another strong push on myself to really kick it back into high gear starting tomorrow, as a birthday present to myself.

no weigh in this week

2007-11-28T07:03:00.000-05:00

So I may not be able to do a weigh in this week. My scale insists today that I'm down to 327, like more than 16 down from last week. I mean, I would like to believe that... but I know I haven't been nearly that good. It did this sort of thing once before, and then it was working fine in a couple of days, so we'll see.

For now, i'm on non-scale measurements, and don't really have anything positive to report. I'm still pretty much stuck somewhere between 337 and 343. I've been on plan since Sunday, including workouts, so hopefully i'll start to show some results next week.

good luck to all!

good feeling

2007-11-25T22:23:00.000-05:00

So I have a good feeling about this week to come, diet wise at least. My treadmill is back in working order, though I probably won't have time for it tomorrow morning. I can't think of any reason why I couldn't be on plan as far as calorie intake.

And once I survive tomorrow things should be looking up again at work. Unfortunately tomorrow I need to get in as early as I can. I have a annual review/case review thing with my boss that I'm really not looking forward to at all... and if I fail to get something done in the morning that would have made it go smoother because I took time to do my workout it would send me into a anger spiral. I know this is a cop out, but I will make it up in the afternoon.

So there are times when being on plan just seems natural and obvious, and other times when it seems all but impossible. And I don't mean things like thanksgiving dinner. I mean just normal days where there aren't any outside influences making me make bad choices, I just do. I really want to get back to where it seems easy again, I'm just having a hell of a time finding my way back.

week 13 results

2007-11-22T20:01:00.000-05:00

So I had to do my weigh-in for this week last night before rushing out to Zanesville for the holiday. Unfortunately, i'm up again, taking me to 343.1.

No real excuse for this... I just haven't been living up to my own standards.

I know that this is a disappointment. Don't give up on me, I will get this figured out.

"new" treadmill

2007-11-20T10:22:00.000-05:00

My treadmill is working again !!!

/me is doing a happy dance.

Turns out that I had a bad fuse. I've replaced it.

No more having to venture out to the gym in the morning, at least for a while. This is exactly the type of morale boost that should help me get rejuvinated.

So yeah, I'm happy this morning.

belated week 12 wrap up

2007-11-19T23:46:00.000-05:00

So sometimes I hate blogger. I'm sure this has happened to others, but I had a fairly long post disapear on me last Thursday, and was too frustrated to want to write it all up again. I'm not sure why I let that bother me so much, I mean, stuff happens, but that sort of situation always tends to lead to not posting for a while. In fact, every blog that I've started and then later abandoned was because of a day just like that one.

But don't worry, I'm not going to abandon this effort.

I really don't have anything of importance to post though, and that's the problem. I ended week 12 .2 lbs down from the end of week 11, and right now I'm back another .5 on the week. I'm not completely on or completely off plan. I'm doing a lot of things wrong, a few things right.

Really everything can be reduced to not focusing enough, not paying enough attention to this part of my life. I haven't been keeping my food log at all or blogging. I have been exercising, but not making it an absolute rule.

I guess the long and short of it is that i'm still here, I'm still struggling, and I'm still trying to make progress.

What have I learned through this last several weeks of slacking off?

I think I need to make concrete short term goals for myself. Realistic short term goals work. I did have a goal set for thanksgiving which was not realistic, and when I realized that I could not achieve it it really set me for a loop. It was kind of a, hey, I'm not going to make my goal, why should I care if I miss it by a little bit or a lot. That's really not the attitude I need right now.

So, what is my goal. Well, Since I have to do my week 13 weigh in on wednesday morning (two days from now) I'm going to set my week 13 goal to .5 lbs down from where I am right now. Then my week 14 goal will be 3 lbs. Then I'll reevaluate.

Thanksgiving schedule - I will be in Zanesville Thursday, Columbus Thursday evening through Saturday noonish, and back in Chillicothe Saturday evening. I will find time to post tomorrow and Wednesday, and probably not again until Saturday.

Tim, keep me honest on this... give me a call Sunday if you don't see a Saturday post!

Liz's recipe for today - super easy veggie wraps

2007-11-19T10:17:00.000-05:00

So this is actually Liz - We'll see how long it takes Mike to notice I've hacked into his blog, and maybe it will inspire him to post as well. Mike and I had talked a while back about me posting a recipe on here periodically, and I figured now was a good time to do it.

Super easy veggie wraps:

What you'll need:
- frozen mixed veggies of your choice (we like the Kroger brand fiesta mix - it has broccoli, carrots, and an assortment of beans)
- salsa
- tortillas (whole wheat if you can find them where you are)
optional:
- shredded low fat cheese (the fat free kind won't melt at all - Sargento makes a really good low-fat kind though)
-fat free sour cream/plain yogurt
-other toppings you like

Put as many veggies as you think you'll eat into a microwave safe bowl, and mix in a few tablespoons of salsa per cup or so of veggies. Cover the bowl with a lid (or an overturned plate) and put it in the microwave. If your microwave has a "frozen veggies" setting, set it for one serving, and start it - we've found that our microwave likes to cook frozen veggies to mush, so start with the time for one serving and add on more if the veggies aren't cooked to your taste. Otherwise, the veggies have time suggestions printed on them (although these will generally also give you mush - so you may want to reduce the time somewhat.) All of this can also be done in a covered pan on the stove - just add a little water to make sure nothing sticks.
When the veggies are cooked, spoon some out onto a tortilla, top with whatever toppings you like, and fold them up.

Yum!

Please post soon Mike ;)

not giving up

2007-11-13T18:53:00.000-05:00

So there have been a lot of opportunities to just give up and walk away from this in the past couple of weeks. It would have been easier in the short run.

Thank you for reading and sticking with me, and keeping in touch with me through this rough patch.

I want to post a happy uplifting message again. I want to be proud of myself the way i was just two weeks ago. I want to go through a single day with no mistakes and no sliding and no cheating myself. I want to expand that to a week, to a month.

Tomorrow is "put all the pieces together" day. Tomorrow i am going to 1) do both of my workouts, 2) stick to the plan in terms of food, 3) read blogs, 4) write my food journal, and 5) be able to post a happy message at the end of the day. And then the day after that I'll do the same, and the day after that I'll wonder why I found it so hard to do that for this "time off."

middle of the road

2007-11-12T21:42:00.000-05:00

Today was a good example of the kind of week i'm having. Neither spectacularly good nor spectacularly bad. Somewhat complacent though, and I need to work on that.

Tomorrow I'm going to make a serious effort at getting up and getting to the gym in the morning to start my day off on a good foot. I really need to get back into my walking/jogging habit.

happy birthday mom :)

2007-11-11T23:19:00.000-05:00

So my mom doesn't actually check my blog, in fact she doesn't really know how to use the internet at all, but happy birthday to her anyway.

Completely meaningless coincidence... I was born on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, the day that is generally cited as the introduction of the US into WW II, my mom was born on the anniversary of the day which is remembered as the end of WW I.

Anyway, did pretty well today, but didn't get any formal exercise in. Tomorrow should be a holiday at work, but I have depositions, so I have to work. But I will definitely make time to get to the gym, so that's a positive.

The wedding was nice, but quite long. Did allow myself the prime rib at the reception, but skipped the alcohol, fried appetizers, and wide array of cookies and candies. So all in all I don't feel like I have any guilt from that.

I'm getting sick of recommitting myself and saying, ok, bad half hearted time is over, back to work. I feel like I've been saying that a lot lately. I guess I could interpret that as incentive to make it stick this time :) Here's to ending out the week in a strong way.

In keeping with my goal of getting back to the system that was working really well, tomorrow I am going to restart my food log. I have been skipping that far too often, and it is too easy to cut corners when I don't have to face the points at the end of the day.

Several people have commented that I could just find time to walk outside now that my treadmill is busted and going to the gym for their treadmill is proving difficult. The problem is 1) it's freaking cold in Ohio in November, especially at 5:30 am! :) and 2) walking outside is more public than I think I can handle at this point. At least at the gym everyone else is working out. But then six weeks or so ago I though I couldn't handle doing the gym thing, and just had to decide to make myself do it, and it worked out fine. So I'm not dismissing the idea of walking outside altogether, but I can't say that I've worked up the guts to do it yet.

Ok, deep, calming breaths. I can do this.

checking in

2007-11-10T13:05:00.000-05:00

So one day into my new committment to blog every day and I already missed a day :)

Anyway, got home at around 4 am last night, helping a friend pack books into boxes. Between that and my trip to the gym Friday evening I really did a number on my back, so sitting down and typing was out of the question.

Today and tomorrow are going to be hectic... I have a wedding to attend in Dayton this evening and then I'm off to Zanesville for my mom's b-day tomorrow. So staying on plan will be a little bit challenging.

The lack of a treadmill at home is also being a problem of late. Getting up early enough to get to the gym and come back home before getting ready for work is proving to be an almost insurmountable hurtle for me. I really need to get someone in to check out my treadmill so I can get back into my twice a day schedule. Hopefully I'll get ahold of someone on Tuesday.

Anyway, still struggling, but showing signs of improvement, and feeling a bit more hopeful.

good riddance to week 11

2007-11-08T22:38:00.000-05:00

So "the rumors of my death..." and whatnot.

Truefully, this week has been very hard on me professionally and personally, and I am glad to see the end of it. Here's to a better week 12.

I'm up 5.2 lbs this week, taking me back to 339.6. I can't say I'm surprised, as I really haven't done anything right this week at all. I mean, I haven't been completely off the wagon since Sunday, but I haven't been making the best choices possible either. And I haven't been keeping my food log or blogging. The last two can be somewhat explained by the insanity at work, but it still is not anything to be glad about.

So, I need a recovery plan. Something to turn things around and get me focused again. I think I will start with the blog. I will make every effort to post at least one entry every day for the next week, in hopes that will inspire me to get back into the habits which had been serving me so well for 10 weeks.

I can do this.

my first and last relapse

2007-11-05T09:20:00.001-05:00

Ok, so no midweek report this week. I am afraid to look at the scale today, and am going to force myself to stay off it until Thursday. When I will most likely see a gain for the week.

I relapsed hard yesterday. I can't even begin to attempt to explain it. I can't even come up with an excuse let alone a rational reason why it happened.

One "good" thing... I feel like crap today. Physically I mean, not just emotionally (though that's there too). My stomach hurts and I have no energy. I remember binging feeling good, and it just doesn't any more. I feel like an alcoholic who sobered up for a while and then went on a bender only to find out that his body does experience hangovers now. I've become accustomed to being on plan, and it just doesn't feel good to go off any more.

Today is going to be the real test. Can I go back onto plan? Can I nip this in the bud before I undo all of my progress?

And can I forgive myself for being so monumentally stupid?

I can't let this happen again.

anticlimatic conclusion of FIF

2007-11-02T13:32:00.001-04:00

So it turns out that FIF ended yesterday after 10 weeks, not the 11 that I had thought. Somewhat anticlimactic since I really think I would have made the last couple of pounds to finish out my goal. Oh well.

Had lunch at a meeting today, and was bad enough to allow myself two chicken breasts with skin. They were baked ... so not as bad as fried at least. I'm not too worried about it, if that's the worst slip up I have to confess to its not much to worry over. I'll just focus on having an extra saintly dinner or something.

end of week 10

2007-11-01T05:51:00.000-04:00

Ok, so who ever said that I know a damn thing about weight loss? Sometimes it seems like a science ==> food in - calories out = weight gain/loss. Other times, like today, it seems like black magic being performed on me by my scale whose only mission in life is to confuse the hell out of me. =)

So from Thursday morning last week through to Monday morning I only lost about a half a pound total. But then from Monday morning to today I dropped a full pound each day. I haven't the faintest clue why... I really didn't do anything all that different in the second half of the week compared to the first half.

So either a) I've broken through the plateau already, and have gotten a second wind back, b) this is a one time burst and next week i'll be back to around .2 a day or so, or c) I have no idea what to expect one way or the other because I'm confused as to what happened this week.

Current weight: 334.4

Loss this week: 3.6 lbs

Total loss (10 weeks): 58.4 lbs

Fat lbs lost this week: about 4 lbs

Total fat lbs lost: approximately 64 lbs

Seriously though, thanks to everyone for all the encouragement and comments this past week. It has been somewhat of a trial for me, and I hope that I can say that I've passed. Here's hoping for a smoother week 11.

Only one week left for FIF. I've already reached the original goal that I set for myself for the 11 weeks (25 lbs), and have a realistic chance of reaching the more aggressive goal of 60.

honeymoon's over

2007-10-31T09:30:00.000-04:00

A couple of months ago, I said that I was in the honeymoon phase of my diet. I was just so excited about all the progress I was making, and found the changes I had made so simple and obvious that I couldn't even imagine a time when I would find it difficult.

Yeah, so that's not the case any more.

Now I'm to the most dangerous point of an attempt at a lifestyle change. I haven't been doing this long enough that it is natural to me, but long enough that I'm bored with it. Plus I have reached the point where I can't rely on having spectacular progress reports to cheer me up every half a week. I will get through this. I just need to square my shoulders and work my way through.

The Abs Diet warns you to explain to loved ones that when you restrict calories and get into an exercise routine you will likely experience random mood swings for a while. When I was on the abs diet approach in 2005, I did experience that. This time I thought I had avoided the problem, because I was just so upbeat for the first several weeks. But this past week I've been all over the place. I've been really depressed for no reason, I've been optimistic, I've been angry and discouraged. I think the excitement of losing weight so quickly this time blocked the emotional impact of the restricted diet and now that's wearing off.

Or maybe its completely unrelated, who knows.

Anyway, here's hoping that another 10 weeks finds me to the point where all of this comes more naturally, and has become a habit rather than an effort.

On the bright side, I jogged 1.1 miles yesterday, averaging 4.6 miles/hour. If I get in at least .8 miles today I'll make 25 miles total walked or jogged for the month. No idea if I'll be able to keep up the pace next month since I'm limited to the treadmills/track at the gym, and since November is a day shorter, but I'll give it my best shot.

mid week number 10

2007-10-29T07:37:00.000-04:00

So I've officially hit my first plateau. The 330's are out to get me!

Current weight: 337.4

Loss this week: .6 lbs

Total Loss: 55.4 lbs

So we'll turn to other measurements for some positive news. When I went out to find a scale that would be high enough capacity to use for me, I also spent a few extra bucks and got one that does fat percentage. I haven't really paid attention to that so much yet, but have made note of it every now and again. Today I realized that using that, I could get a rough idea of how many pounds I've lost that were fat pounds and how many were lean/water pounds.

Anyway, I'm quite pleased to learn that of my 55.4 lbs weight loss... approximately 60 lbs were fat. So whatever water weight I've lost has been regained in extra lean mass, plus another 4.6 lbs for good measure.

This is a fairly big relief for me. While I enjoyed losing the first fifty pounds in only 8 weeks, I was always a little concerned that I was doing something wrong, and would end up losing muscle instead of fat. Apparently that isn't the case. I'm hoping that as I work my way through this wall I've hit I will be able to report fat pounds lost even if I can't report over all progress.

I do have a new roadblock/challenge in my way, though. My treadmill has decided to take a vacation. I can get it to turn on, and to claim to be going through the calibration sequence, but the belt just won't move at all. So I ended up getting no formal exercise yesterday (we did go shopping so I got a little bit of a walk in), and this morning I left the house at quarter past five to go to the gym and use one of their treadmills.

I am going to call tech support today at lunch to see if there's anything I can do. Unfortunately replacing the treadmill just isn't feasible at the moment, so I may be going without for a while. Hopefully I can get into the habit of getting over to the Y before work, but it does make for an awfully early morning.

a much better day.

2007-10-25T20:40:00.000-04:00

So today was a much easier day. In part because my mood has lifted considerably. I had a good weigh in this morning (better than I dared hoped to be honest). I had a good workout at the gym tonight. Tomorrow I'll pass the 2o mile mark for the month, and it is the last day before a weekend. And best of all I went the whole day without wanting to go out and spoil my diet plan. While cravings like yesterday are not the norm, it has been a few weeks since I've really found staying on plan so appealing as I did today.

And of course blogging helped, and I got some really supportive and hopeful comments and e-mails. I'm feeling recommitted and reinvested, and ready to face the coming weeks and months.

And now for something completely different....

Teale asked me to give an explanation of programwide.

Programwide is a 36 hour retreat which I attend twice a year. All of SEOLS (Southeastern Ohio Legal Services, which is a legal aid program serving the 33 counties roughly south of Columbus and east of I-71) attorneys, paralegals, and support staff are required to attend. We have meetings about the state of the program, funding issues, and what each office (we have 8) is doing these days. About 2/3 of the business hours part of the retreat is spent on various trainings, including sessions which count towards continuing legal education (CLE) credits, such as the session on substance abuse. After dinner we are free for the evening, and generally hire a DJ and a bartender, that sort of thing.

In case anybody is curious and doesn't already know... I've been a legal aid attorney with SEOLS for two years now. Legal aid is essentially public defenders for civil matters. We provide direct representation to clients facing problems with eviction, foreclosure, consumer (debt collection, car sales/repairs, fraud, etc), public benefits (welfare, foodstamps, social security, medicaid, etc), and family law (divorce, custody, etc). We handle basically any kind of case unless it is criminal law or if the client would be able to get an attorney without our help (either court appointed or via a contingency fee agreement). We are only able to assist the very poor (under 125% of federal poverty guidelines, and don't get me started on how absurdly low the guidelines are), or the elderly (over 65), and we never charge our clients for our services. Federal law puts significant limitations on what we can and can't do, most significantly we are not allowed to bring a class action suit, and we are not allowed to ask that the opposing party pay us attorneys fees as part of a judgment or settlement. I work in Chillicothe, Ohio, which serves Ross, Pickaway, Jackson, Pike, and Fayette Counties.

Anyway, this has gotten far enough off topic for one entry :) But hopefully now if I mention something about work you'll have some context.

Nine weeks down

2007-10-25T06:04:00.000-04:00

As I expected, I did not have the most stellar of weeks, though nothing I can complain about. I'm starting to get to the point where I have to expect to slow down even further, probably approaching 2 lbs a week or so. Damn physics =)

Current Weight: 338.0

Weight loss this week: 3.8 lbs

Total for 9 weeks: 54.8 lbs

Percentage of End Obesity: 33.05 %

Which is really not bad considering I took three days which were kinda half on plan half off at the beginning of this week. But even the second half of the week where I was completely on plan was a little slower than I'd grown accustomed to. I may hit another good burst of quick loss in the future, but realistically I'd say the days of losing nearly a full pound every day are gone.

it never ends, does it?

2007-10-24T20:58:00.000-04:00

Be forewarned, I'm in somewhat of a self-pity/bitchy mood, so this will be more of an chance to vent some frustration than any intelligent discourse.

I imagine a day, somewhere in the future, when I don't have self destructive compulsions. When I don't want to go out and buy more food than an average family should eat in a week and sit in front of the tv for hours just stuffing myself to the point of being sick. That day certainly has not arrived.

Today I had the strongest craving for Kroger's baked chicken, with the skin and the oh so salty seasoning. I barely know how to describe it. If you've felt such a craving, you already know, if you haven't, you don't and you're lucky. I felt as if I needed something high in fat and salt like I need air. Like a piece of me went missing. Deciding to resist caused me literally to break out into a sweat and my hands to shake. I started to feel ill, like I was going to pass out if I didn't just stop and indulge. I even broke down enough to stop and walk into the store, and just stood there staring at the display. And then I turned around, bought an apple and a bottle of water, and headed back for my car.

In a way this was a victory of sorts, but it feels like the most abject of defeats. After nine weeks of working so hard, of making such good progress, and there I was begging myself just to throw it all away. Just to take what I wanted now, tomorrow be damned. And Liz be damned and my friends be damned and my very life be damned, just so I could have that taste again. Just so I could have for five minutes that sensation of pure taste and abandon. I hate that part of me.

And it hates me back. Its the part of me that wants me to fail. To never take risks, to never draw attention to myself, to never speak to anyone or be with anyone. The part of me that tells me to just stay in bed and be alone forever.

And a horrible thought hit me today, and I can't help but think that its right. I don't think it will ever go away, this craving. I can suppress it. I can deny it. I can block it with healthy foods and water. But it will always be a part of me. I will never be like Liz or Tim or any of my other healthy friends who can allow themselves to do whatever they want as far as food is concerned. And it isn't because they have more willpower or higher metabolisms, its because they simply don't want what I want. Liz would be disgusted to even imagine eating a quarter of some of the meals that I now remember with a mixture of horror and fond longing. If your worst craving is for an occasional can of mountain dew or a icecream cone, guess what, you can have the ice cream cone and the mountain dew. You could even give in to the temptation to have both in a single day. You can even basically replace water in your diet with mountain dew if you want (and he knows who I'm talking about). And it won't matter.

I figured out that a box of that baked chicken that I loved so much, that would work out to over 35 points. More than a days worth of calories, beyond a week's worth of saturated fat. And there have been times when that was just the main course of a single meal. I've gone entire weeks without a single vegetable other than the lettuce that comes on hamburgers. That is who I am. That is how I got to be as I am now.

Am I changed? Or am I just lying to myself?

Will I ever be able to come across this entry in my archives and say, "man, I haven't felt a craving like that in weeks?" Months? Or will it always be a daily struggle for me? Can you really change who you are?

As an attorney, I have to attend a training every other year on "substance abuse." This is because attorneys are like five times as likely as non-attorneys to be alcoholics or become drug users. [This isn't the real stat, just made up to make the point... but there are a lot of alcoholic attorneys out there.] The criteria for what constitutes SA training is fairly broad. Usually it is geared towards either identifying drinking problems in people around you or how to get someone help or how to get help for yourself.

I have attended three of these sessions now. Once in lawschool, and two after lawschool. [heck, thinking back on it, I was sitting next to someone who reads this blog during the one in lawschool ;)]. I have never made it through one of these trainings yet with dry eyes. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't mind admitting that I have extremely overactive tear ducts for a guy... I cry every single time I watch "Wonderful Life." So the fact that I get teary eyed doesn't necessarily mean all that much.

In lawschool, it was during that lecture that I had the moment when I first admitted to myself that I had a real problem with food and with my weight. That started me off on my first real attempt at life style change. And I lost like 40 lbs, but gained it all back with interest. As it happens, my friend who was sitting next to me that day is also the same person who came out of nowhere and somehow convinced me to get back on the wagon this fall. I have moments when I seriously wonder if she isn't an angel of some sort.

The most recent one of these was about a week ago now at Programwide. It was planned by a wonderful woman who happens to be married to one of my bosses. She is a counselor of some sort for people with drug/alcohol issues. According to her talk, studies have found a brainwave pattern in alcoholics which is not found in non alcoholics. This wave is either balanced or canceled, or something, by the ingestion of alcohol. And here's the kicker. This brainwave is considered to be a medical basis for the insistence by many alcoholics that they only feel "normal" when they are drunk. That without alcohol they just don't feel right in some vague sort of way. And further research has suggested that such a thing exists for other addictions as well.

This hit me like a ton of bricks. Months or maybe even years ago, Liz asked me why I eat the way I do, why I enjoy food so much. And the best answer I could come up with wasn't that food makes me feel good. I don't feel a high from really rich chocolate or particularly yummy dessert, or a fat and salt infused chicken breast. No, I eat those things because I feel normal when I eat them. Like without them something just isn't right with the world.

So no, I doubt I will ever be so good, so faithful, so hardworking in this new lifestyle that I don't have the occasional overwhelming urge to chuck it all overboard and go on a bender. My only hope is that with the help of Liz and my friends I can get past the hard parts. And that when I do slip up, I will be able to find my feet again.

told you so

2007-10-23T20:51:00.001-04:00

So in the past I've been inertia's bitch. Kind of makes sense, what with my size and what not. And this morning I had a relapse of that. But tonight I got off my butt and kept my word to myself. (Thanks Dee and Lisa for the inspiration).

It really does surprise me how much harder the increased incline makes the work on the treadmill. I got in a mile with 60% jogging, but the longest I could do in one stretch was .3 miles. And, let me say that just about killed me. I assume this happens to other people too... but when I am pushing myself extra hard, I sometimes get a ache in the right side of my stomach. I should say I used to, because frankly I haven't pushed myself that hard since highschool soccer practice, until tonight. It was almost pleasant in a weird way. I have never worked that hard just for my own benefit, always before it was because I had someone (soccer coaches to be exact) pushing me to go past my comfort zone. I like to think it means I'm doing everything that I can do.

Today was a odd day in that I stayed under on points, but feel as if I over indulged in food. Just everything I had was fairly low calorie. That happens a lot when I really go overboard on steamed veggies... since they have like no points (well, about one per serving). I end up feeling as full as I would have felt back in my binging days, but with only about a tenth of the calories, if that. As far as I know, such days aren't a problem, so long as I keep my taste for veggies and don't switch back to potato chips!

Liz made a really good treat for me the other day. I don't have the exact recipe, but its basically no sugar cheesecake flavor pudding mixed made up with condensed milk blended with canned pumpkin, with lots of extra cinnamon added for flavor and for fiber. And a whole cup is only 2 points. And I get to have dessert :)

lunch break

2007-10-23T12:38:00.000-04:00

Dunno why, but I just could not make myself do my treadmill this morning. So I went in to work a little early, and headed down to the Y during my lunch. Now I need to just grab a quick lunch and head out, cause I've got appointments this afternoon out of town.

I will do my treadmill this evening. I will stay on plan.

First of many

2007-10-22T06:26:00.000-04:00

I did it!!

For what I believe to be the first time in my life, I just jogged a full mile without resting!

I did it at an average of 4.2 mph (.1 at 4.0, .8 at 4.2, .1 at 4.5), and at a 1 degree incline. Tomorrow I'm back at 5 degrees, but I think I may take a day every week to do a mile or more at 1 degree, at least until I've gotten to the point of doing the mile at 5.

inching closer to that first mile

2007-10-21T09:49:00.000-04:00

I wasn't sure, with a few days off, how well my treadmill workout would go today. But I managed to push myself up to .75 miles jogging and only .25 walking. My legs were a little stiff at first, but they worked out ok as I got going.

Last week when I had to do a leg workout without the Y being open, I decided to try walking a mile on the treadmill set to 10 degrees (its max) instead of my standard 5. It was a much harder workout than I had been anticipating. Thinking about it now, I think tomorrow I might try my jog with the treadmill set to flat, and see how much easier it is there. No promises, but If it makes as much of a difference as I suspect, I may shoot to jog a full mile tomorrow. Then whatever happens, I'll go back to the 5 degrees the day after, and continue working my way up to a mile on that setting.

Now I need to go fix breakfast :) Quick tip - Kroger brand frozen veggies makes two different sizes of chopped broccoli. The smaller size pieces work really well in omelets (I use store brand egg beaters for mine)

midweek report for week 9

2007-10-21T08:40:00.000-04:00

I was writing my midweek report in bed this morning, and in my head it started something like this...

"Well, I always said there'd be weeks like this. I'm afraid I have to report my first negative loss. Now its only a midweek report, and I can't say I'm surprised with programwide then a visit in Z-ville followed by my parents coming down to watch the games yesterday."

and so on. But by some miracle, I don't have a negative report. I don't have much of a loss to show, but it is still in the right direction :)

Current Weight : 340.8

Loss this half week: 1 lb

Loss for 8.5 weeks: 52 lbs.

I did get out to the Y yesterday, but I did not get my treadmill in for the day. I did the Y in the morning because a) they close at 4:30, and b) my parents were arriving at around 3 to watch the buckeyes game. I figured I'd get the treadmill in before bed, but we ended up watching the Michigan and the Indians games (extremely painful, btw), and by the time we called it a night I could barely walk up the stairs before falling asleep. I feel somewhat guilty about it now... its the first time in three weeks or so that sticking to my schedule would have been practicable, and only lack of motivation/energy on my part made me slack.

But it's done, and I'm back on the wagon, so I'm not going to obsess. And hell, I've still made some, if not stellar, progress this week. Can't complain about that!

And as of today I'm back on a normal schedule... no expectations of any specific challenges until Saturday. Saturday I'm attending a wedding and a costume party, so I'll probably only do my treadmill in the morning and not get an evening workout, plus who knows what I'll end up doing food wise. But at least I can end out this week strong and try to make up for some lost time.

one down, twenty two to go

2007-10-20T08:08:00.000-04:00

I accomplished one of my "once i've lost weight" goals this week. Specifically, "18) Dance at bars or programwides without having to be drunk first."

This programwide I danced as much as I wanted, and just decided that I didn't really give a rat patootie what people might think I looked like. I was having fun, and that's what mattered. And I didn't have a single drop of anything stronger than water the whole time I was in Burr Oak.

The other positive weight loss news is that when I saw my parents Friday afternoon (first time i'd been over to see them in about five weeks), they immediately noticed that I have been making progress. They are now two of the extremely few people who have done so without being told I was trying to do so, so that made me feel more confident. Programwide had taken on a kind of signficance to me to see if people not aware of the blog or any of this would notice the change in me, and when nobody said anything about it I got myself somewhat depressed. I mean, I know that it is extremely likely that it was noticeable to some of my friends, but they just felt it would be impolite to mention it, like when you're cautious about asking a woman friend if they're pregnant unless you're really really sure of the answer. But there were a couple of people I had hoped, based on their general attitudes towards such rules, would say something, and none of them did.

Programwide as a whole was pretty good, and relaxing. In the terms relevant to this blog, however, it was something of a mini disaster.

As predicted, the only options for lunch on Tuesday were hamburgers, hotdogs, baked beans (and I have no doubt loaded with both fat and HFCS), potato salad (I know potatoes are technically a vegetable, but I don't count them as such), and potato chips (especially in chip form). I did try a veggie burger, and to my surprise it was actually really tasty. I did go ahead and have it on a bun, just because I wanted to be able to cover it in toppings and I don't have enough practice eating leaf sandwiches to want to do so in front of a lot of other people (I always end up with a huge mess).

Then dinner was a little better, there were steamed (but overly so) green beans with carrots, something approaching a cesar salad with grilled chicken (I skipped the parm. and croutons) and penne with a marinara which had squash pieces cooked into it. I probably should have skipped the pasta, but I was a captive audience with little in the way of options (no car and the closest town about a half hour drive away), and I knew I'd need the energy for the party that night.

Friday didn't go much better. I had lunch at a buffet with my parents, and I did pick healthy options, but I still ate too many of them. I don't think any single item was at all problematic... ok, the grilled chicken did have Teriyaki on it, but other than that everything by itself was great, but two plates of healthy food plus some fruit for dessert still adds up. Plus it turned out to be my only meal of the day, so while I was likely under on points, I had them all at once, which is very not on plan.

I may or may not go back and figure out my points for the past two days. I hate doing so when I'm having something like pasta sauce without having access to that particular recipie or label, as it varies so much by what you put in it. And I know I overate, so I may just put down 40 points for each day and leave it at that.

On the "move more" side of things, I did a lot better. After dinner I went for about a mile walk, down this hill to the lake, around a good chunk of the lake, and then back up an a fairly huge hill (that was really rough, my heart rate felt like it was pushing the max HR boundary by the time I reached the top). Then of course dancing at the party (from about 9 till 1:30, I was probably dancing 40% of the time, and drinking lots of water). Then another walk outdoors yesterday after lunch, prob. about a mile again. Then a strength training when I got home last night. Which was more difficult than usual because I only got about about three hours sleep Thurs. night, and got home at around 9 pm.

And on the "motivate better" arena... well I really have to give major appreciation on that front to Dee and Scale Junkie for their posts here, and to everyone who left comments or e-mails while I was gone. Starting this blog was one of the best decisions I've ever made for myself. And to think that other people are looking to me for any sort of example... that's a true shock, and will be a huge motivator as I move forward.

Thank you all so much!

Fifty One. Week 8 results.

2007-10-18T06:52:00.000-04:00

As of right now, I'm 51 lbs less obese than I was 8 weeks ago today. For the record, that's a total of :

current weight: 341.8

loss this week: 5.4

loss overall: 51

percent of 2008 goal: 30.76%

More on what this all means for me when I get back on Saturday.

another trip to the gym

2007-10-17T18:12:00.000-04:00

So I'm about to leave for another workout at the gym. Today marks 21 days in a row that I've gotten in both planned workouts. Not a bad first run. Tomorrow I will almost certainly miss my afternoon workout and then Friday I'll miss the morning jog. But I'm recommitting myself to getting back on the horse Saturday.

This will be the last workout vacation until at least Thanksgiving.

So I still don't really have a plan for how to get through my retreat (called programwide, btw). Not drinking shouldn't be too hard, the place we're going has a lousy bar anyway, and I'm trying to stay in budget this month. Lunch will be all but impossible... I don't recall there being any veggies last year, except veggie burgers. One thing I have not yet learned to tolerate is fake meat products. I love all sorts of veggies, and I've even learned to like tofu... but fake meat stuff is just wrong for me.

Do you ever drink out of a glass thinking it's milk and it turns out to be OJ or something else? You like OJ, it tastes fine, but in that moment it just tastes wrong. Like your body is all set to register milk, so the taste you get is interpreted not as OJ but as really funny tasting milk? That's kind of how fake meat tastes to me. Like I can't convince my eyes that it isn't going to taste like real beef or whatever, and then when it doesn't it just tastes... wrong.

So I think the best solution for tomorrow will be to just do the best I can, try to stick with beans and any veggies that do show up. And not worry too much about it if I am not perfect.

You know, there are so many reasons in my life I have no right to be an uptight perfectionist with myself. One of these days one will get through to me ;)

If anybody reads here who doesn't read scale junkie... check out her letter to herself. I need to say the same thing to myself pretty much every time things don't go perfectly, I'm just not as articulate about it. Thanks for the inspiration, SJ :)

a new day

2007-10-17T07:14:00.000-04:00

Its a new day, and a new, more positive outlook. I got an unusually restful night's sleep, woke up to a healthy breakfast and a even healthier jog. Tomorrow is a weigh in, and I'm cautiously optimistic that I will pass the 50 lb mark.

As for the jog... I'm now up to doing a mile in 4 sections of .1 walk/.15 jog, though I dropped my jogging speed back down to 4.0 for three of the four jogging sections. Once I'm back up to doing 4.5 mph, I'll start pushing myself to .2 miles jogging at a time. I'm also up to 14.3 miles for October. I have little doubt I'll get to 20 miles for the month, maybe 25 if I push it, though I am going to have to take Friday the 19th off. I think 25 miles a month is a good target to end out the year, then next year I'll try for 30.

I have to leave extra early tomorrow morning, so It'll probably just be a quick post with my results for week 8. Then I'll be back here either late Friday or mid day Saturday, depending on whether I come straight back home or if I head up to Z-ville Friday night.

-------------------------------

I do want to take a second to explain one of my subversive thoughts from yesterday, because I don't want to leave anyone with a false impression. When Liz suggested that I might need liposuction at the end of my journey, it wasn't because she lacks confidence in me or is not supportive. Liz really has a lot more confidence in my ability to keep at this project than I do. Her reasoning was based on some research cited in the Abs Diet (which we've both read). The author says that abdominal fat consists of lipids, and that lipid cells can only expand so far before they split into two cells. He also says that while it is possible to remove the fat from a lipid cell, it is impossible to make it disappear all together. Therefore once you have x lipid cells in your abdomen, you can only lose weight by making each cell as small as possible. Liz is worried that I have so many lipids now that even if I empty them as much as physically possible, I will still be overweight from where I want to be. As we read the Abs Diet's reasoning, the most dedicated body builder would need liposuction to get past a certain point.

I'm holding out hope that that no more progress level is somewhere below the obesity mark, if not below the healthy weight mark, and that I will just decide that I had reached a level where I could happily maintain my weight. Liz thinks it might be higher than that. However, even if I am happy with my weight, it might make sense to have some of the cells removed, as the cells themselves are potentially harmful (release hormones that can cause high blood pressure, etc) and having the cells there makes it easier to regain the weight once I've lost it, which I definitely don't want to do.

Anyway, this is all a couple of years away, so I'm not going to worry about it right now. I just wanted to set the record straight.

------------------------------

Chubby Chick, thank you so much for your kind comment from yesterday. I know you don't have a lot of spare blog time this week, so I am honored that you took time to read through my somewhat self-pitying rant yesterday :) I promise to keep posting!

motivation issues

2007-10-16T09:35:00.000-04:00

I've been on plan every day for the past several days without a post, but it has been more of a challenge than previously. Last night was particularly difficult. I just didn't really want to go out to the gym, and I really really wanted to binge. To be honest, I'm not 100% sure why it was that I ended up going to the gym and staying well under on points for the day.

Some days its fairly simple. I feel excited about my goals, about how well I'm advancing towards them, about looking forward to surprising people who hadn't seen me in a while. Then, just in the past week or so, I've been having an increasing feeling of "who cares."

These are the kinds of things going through my mind :

Is it really going to matter in the long run? Am I shy and isolated and unpopular because I'm fat, or am I fat because that gives me an excuse to be shy and isolated and unpopular? How much will this really change my life? And its probebly too late to signficantly improve my health, isn't it? I mean, you can't be more than 150 lbs overweight for 28 years, and then get down to a healthy weight and not expect to develop diabetes and have a heart attack at 35, can you? And will I even look any better, my skin certainly isn't going to just fall back into place as I lose the weight, the elastic has been well and truly sprung by this point. Do I really want to have to consider having plastic surgery after all this hard work is done? And Liz even thinks I may have to consider liposuction towards the end to get the last 50 lbs zapped!

I'm proud of the fact that despite these barbs of internal sabotage, I stayed on plan yesterday. And I plan to again today, and tomorrow.

One thing I obviously haven't been doing as much the last couple of days is writing here or commenting on other blogs. That goes back to the lack of excitement I'm feeling. And its even something of a chicken and egg problem. I will make a conscious effort to post on the blog every day this week, and spend a little more time reading other blogs, and hopefully find that emotional commitment again.

Part of the difficulty last night is that Liz is out of town until Wednesday evening, and I had to be at work super early yesterday. So I was starving by the time I had lunch at two, and just wanted to spend the rest of the day eating, the way I probably would have done if this were a year ago and Liz were out of town. I decided to distract myself by a ride to Columbus and a trip to whole foods to find if they had any no HFCS/trans fat pretzels without added salt. They didn't, but I did get a couple of other things which seemed interesting and a few things we've had before but have used up, so the trip wasn't completely wasted. And it did get me out of the house and a bit out of my funk, so that was good.

Thursday and Friday will be a little different, because I'm going to my twice annual retreat for work. Which means 1) staying at a park lodge with no workout room that I've found yet, and therefore no treadmill Friday morning. 2) Thursday night exercise will be dancing (we have a DJ), if I can get up the nerve to do it. Conveniently Thursday is a leg day this week anyway. I may slip out and try to go walk one of the trails Thursday between dinner and the party too. 3) Friday we get done at noon, so I should still be able to get back to the gym Friday evening, and even if I don't I can do a home version of the upper body workout. 4) Meals will be a real challenge, as Thursday lunch is always hamburgers and hotdogs and potato salad, and dinner is never much better.

One bright note, I wore a suit yesterday that eight weeks ago had been my emergency backup for when my primary suit was too dirty or wrinkled to wear, but it didn't really fit me. I basically couldn't button the jacket without the button threating to pop off. Anyway, it fit me beautifully yesterday, the pants were even a size too large I think. So that was a good thing.

---------------------------------

Update: 8:50 pm

Anyway, just writing this has cheered me up quite a bit (see, not writing in my blog really was was part of the problem more than it was a symptom). I had to write it on paper for a change, as my house had no power this morning. I typed it in here this evening, but backdated it to when I actually wrote it earlier today.

Today went a good deal better, motivation wise. Today was my 7th day in a row on plan. Half way to setting a new record for myself.

I realized I didn't do a midweek weigh in this week, but I'm just not going to worry about it since week 8 ends in 36 hours. But I think I will be pleased with the results for the week.

Thank you to everyone who has left comments or sent me e-mails. Your support is a big part of what keeps this blog, and my efforts at rebirth, going strong.

the plan

2007-10-13T16:21:00.000-04:00

So Chubby Chick (her name for herself, not mine) asked in a comment yesterday that I explain my weight loss plan. So here it is.

Part I: eat less.

My food intake is based maybe 40% on Weight Watchers (I'm not an official member), 40% on the Abs Diet by David ZincZenko, and 20% on either my own theories or other sources.

I do portion control based on WW points. My current point allowance is 33, which is based on the old system, on the grounds that the new system just was way too lenient for my tastes (it would still allow me 44 points a day). I generally try not to use the flex points, and have managed to use none of them in 3 out of the 7 weeks I've tracked so far. I don't bother calculating any activity points (or whatever they're called... based on working out).

But that's just portions. My food choices are based largely on the Abs Diet's "power foods." Which is to say, look for each of these 12 different foods, and avoid at all costs high fructose corn syrup (the dreded HFCS I mention often in the blog) on the grounds it is more likely to cause diabetes, and trans fats, for, well everyone knows they're bad.

The weakness, in my opinion, in the Abs Diet is that they are so focused on assuring the reader that you can eat whatever you want as long as you avoid HFCS and trans fats, that they are fairly silent on portion control. Sure it says that with the extra fiber and protien you're eating you won't want to eat more than is ok, but that never really worked for me. Even when I was on a pure version of the Abs Diet back in 2005, I kept a calorie log, because I have a fairly week internal "full" sensor, and the calorie log kept my portions in check.

Another big way I deviate from the advice in Abs Diet is that it relies heavily on smoothies, and I just can't force myself to learn to like them. I've tried making myself eat a smoothy for breakfast, but I more often than not end up pitching it, skipping breakfast altogether, and then being too hungry to do self control at lunch.

Beyond that I incorporate advice that I read which makes sense to me, and other little tricks based on my own experience and understanding of my motivators.

Part II: Move More.

My exercise is pretty much a matter of personal tastes and pushing myself as hard as I can do. If I'm stuck at home on an upper body day, I still do the weight lifting routine laid out in Abs Diet, but most days I'm at the gym.

I do a treadmill every morning before showering (I have a Ironman treadmill that Liz and I bought about a year ago. Its in the dining room because we bought it refurbished, and therefore it came in one piece, and we couldn't even think about lifting it to get it up stairs.) I started out just doing walking, and pushing the pace and distance every day. Now I alternate .1 walking and .1 jogging. Currently I'm up to half a mile of each, 2.5 mph on the walking part, 4.5 on the jogging. Beginning October 1, I have also been keeping track of how far I've walked or jogged on the treadmill, and am up to 10.85 miles for the month.

Every afternoon after work plus Saturday I head over to the Y. I alternate days, one day doing all of the upper body machines, the next doing stationary bike and the leg machines. Sunday, since the Y is closed, I do a home version of the upper body workout from Abs Diet, or an extra treadmill session, depending on which day it is in the rotation.

Part III: Motivate better

I am a member of a e-mail group fall challenge, I post to the blog, I read other blogs, and I keep track of my eating and walking in Excel. So I have a lot of metrics and a lot of supporters. I think that last is the single most important element of the plan. It is certainly the biggest change from any attempt I've made before, and it seems to be doing wonders ;)

The Regained is Relost

2007-10-12T08:01:00.000-04:00

7 weeks ago I owned three belts. Two of them I couldn't buckle, the third I could only buckle on the very loosest setting if I squeezed.

Now I own three belts. One of which I can't buckle because there isn't a small enough setting, the other two I can only buckle on the very tightest setting, and one of those is a little looser than I'd like. It works well for pants that are about two sizes too big, but doesn't really work with pants that actually fit me (the extra material folded over at the waist band helps fill out the belt)

And I think my next new belt may come from somewhere other than casual male xl, and may have to come pretty soon.

So yeah, I'm happy today :)

As to the title of this post.... I'm declaring myself done with re-losing the weight I'd regained in the past two years, and I'm now working on new territory. I don't really remember exactly where I finished last time, and have unfortunately lost my weight loss journal from that year. But I do remember how my wedding suit fit me when I was at my lightest.

For those of you who don't know, my wedding suit is the only tailored suit I've ever owned. It was a very generous wedding gift from my in-laws, and I don't even want to think about how much it cost. So not being able to wear it has always been one of my biggest regrets in my weight gain after the wedding. Soon I'll be able to wear it for a while before it goes back in the closet as too big. If I manage to maintain my weight loss, I may even decide to have it taken in to fit again. Its a really nice suit.

So anyway, I put on my wedding suit last night, and it fits me again. A little tight, so I won't wear it for real for another week or so to avoid ripping the pants (they are over 5 years old now, after all). But it does fit me as well or better than it did two years ago when I wore it to my job interview at SEOLS.

Only 30 lbs or so to go until Highschool graduation weight (somewhere around 320). That's the new goal for the end of the year. I don't have any tactile clothes memory to tell me when I've gotten there... so I'll just pick 320, so that there's a little gap between that milestone and the big 300 milestone

Introducing pure lard, now with 0 grams fat per serving

2007-10-11T21:21:00.000-04:00

Serving size, .5 grams.

Did you know that the new Crisco with "0 grams trans fat per serving" actually has more than .4 grams of trans fat per serving? And the FDA logic for allowing this to happen is that it's too hard to test for trans levels that low. Ok, imagine we accept that... who set the serving level? Does this mean that if I break my prepackaged food item up small enough, I could call it fat free? Sorry FDA, the .0000001 oz serving size is too small to allow us to test for fat, I guess we'll just label it 0 fat per serving.

And of course, the FDA would say, no no, we don't allow that sort of nonsense. We made soda manufacturers increase the serving size on a can of pop to the whole can, didn't we? (actually, I don't know if that was the FDA's decision, but whatever).

But why couldn't they test for trans fats using two servings to test from? Or Four? Isn't the stuff fairly uniform? Can't they just say, ok, we'll test this whole vat for trans fats, and then divide the results by the number of servings?

Somehow that just seems more fair, not to mention health conscious.

Oh, and Canada requires testing to .2 grams accuracy. It isn't as if the fat is easier to detect above the 49th parallel.

And I guess I really don't have any room to bitch about this. I didn't get to be morbidly obese because I didn't realize Crisco was bad for me. But now, in trying to turn my life around, I would appreciate it if I could at least count on accurate information.

Ok, rant over.

end of week 7 report

2007-10-11T15:26:00.000-04:00

So Sunday and Tuesday didn't end up hurting my week as a whole. I think I have the regular exercise routine to thank for that (14 days without a miss!)

Weight: 347.2

Week's loss: 6.6, 45.6 down since Aug 23

27.5% of the way to the end of obesity.

And so far I've walked/jogged 8.85 miles for October.

Speaking of which, today I did five sets of my walk/jog, meaning I jogged an entire half mile! I think I will stick at that pace for about a week, and then next week I'll change the routine to be .1 mile walking followed by .15 miles jogging, and work towards being able to do a mile that way.

.5 down, only 2.6 left to go before I can do a 5K :)

When I've reached my weightloss goals ....

2007-10-10T21:00:00.000-04:00

When I got my job after lawschool, Liz and I suddenly had a lot more income coming in than we were used to. So we anticipated, and kept saying, "hey, when you start getting a paycheck, lets do ______." It quickly became too much to keep straight, so we had to start making a list, so we could be sure to do the highest priority things first.

Well, I need to start making a "when i've reached my weightloss goals" list. These are things that I couldn't do right now, either due to physical or psychological barriers, which the pure act of doing them will be a celebration of my achievement. This list is going to be a work in progress, and I will put a link to this post somewhere on the blog so you can check back for any additions. I'd also love any suggestions you might have, just leave them in the comments.

So here they are, in no particular order than the order that I happened to think of them in. And they don't all necessary require the same goal, some can happen at a higher weight than others.

Last updated: 10-11-2007

When I have reached my weight loss goals I will:

1) Finally take scuba lessons. I went diving once, just in a swimming pool, at a summer camp in seventh grade or so, and I absolutely loved the experience. I've always wanted to learn to dive for real, but it simply isn't practicable at my size.

2) Rent a convertible for a road trip. And not have to worry about whether I will fit behind the steering wheel.

3) Go swimming where there are other people other than just Liz.

4) buy a tailored suit once I have reached a level that I want to just maintain and not lose any more

5) fly in an airplane and not be afraid that they'll make me pay for two seats

6) join a softball or soccer or basketball team and be able to hold my own

7) run a half marathon. I really don't have any interest in doing a full one, they are just brutal on the well being of even a conditioned athlete, but a half would be fun.

8) hike up a mountain. And not be winded any faster than Liz.

9) Ride a bike from one city to another. I don't know why, this has always been something I though would be a lot of fun if I could do it.

10) Ride a train in a sleeper car.

11) Have the experience of being "checked out" by a woman who doesn't know me and be able to imagine that she likes what she sees

12) Feel confident showering in the locker room.

13) Not have to think about my weight every single day without regaining what I've lost

14) Canoe down the Muskingum I used to love canoing at summer camp. Then one year I ended up having to drag my canoe a good chunk of the way because the water was shallow that year and the boat kept running into the river bed. I haven't canoed since.

15) Shop at a "normal person" department store.

16) Go to cedar point which is another of those things I loved to do growing up but haven't been able to do in years.

17) Play backyard football and maybe even on the "skins" team.

18) Dance at bars or programwides without having to be drunk first. First Accomplished: October 18, 2007, fall programwide.

19) Join a choral group - this has more to do with lung capacity than weight, but the two are related. I sang in school choir for 7 years and in my church choir for about 2, but that's long past now.

20) Go onto the roof of my house and not worry that I'll fall through

21) Climb a tree - I've never actually done this, I never had the upper body strength to match my weight.

22) Climb a ladder without being worried that it will break.

23) Sit on the patio at a restaurant and fit into the chair and be confident it will hold me.

24) Attend an Indians game and be able to fit in the seats and ...

25) Attend a play or the above mentioned baseball game and be able to slip down the row past other people to reach my seat.

dieting when nobody's around

2007-10-10T20:38:00.000-04:00

So usually I'm complaining about sticking to my weight loss plan when other people are around to mess it up. Today I want to consider the opposite situation.

Tonight I was feeling particularly tired and a bit sore when I got home from work, and was very tempted to skip the afternoon workout. "I've already done 13 days without a miss... what's one day," I thought. And even more depressingly, "nobody would know you skipped, Liz won't be home until 11 tonight. You could go play computer games and relax. Hell, you could even run out and buy some chicken and nobody would ever have to know."

But you know what, I would know. And that's the point. I'm not doing this for Liz, although she's thrilled with my decision. And I'm not doing this for G, even though she is the one who finally kicked my ass into gear. I'm doing this for my own health and happiness.

So I went to the gym, and I did my whole workout. And I came home and had a LC dinner (grilled chicken & penne with caramel apple dessert - 6.4 points.) And I am going to get to bed early tonight feeling good about myself, not feeling guilty that I had broken the rules.

I do wish that voice would go away, but I'm coming to the conclusion that it never will. I will likely never be able to pass a Wendy's or a Dairy Queen without occasionally feeling a pang of longing for the bad old days when I just didn't care what I allowed myself to eat. I'll never be able to smell fresh hot chicken without becoming instantly hungry.

But in the end I have to make a choice. 5 minutes of pleasure now, no matter how badly I long for it, is just not worth the cost on my life, my mobility, and my health. It isn't worth the cost to Liz or to my family or to my friends. It isn't worth the dread that I will have kids who are ashamed to be seen with me in public. It isn't worth the cost and embarrassment of having to shop at the fat guy store.

It just isn't worth it.

No soy el diablo

2007-10-10T15:32:00.000-04:00

As I was leaving Athens (Ohio) last night, my mind was racing, alternating between mentally flogging myself and writing a furious blog entry lamenting my sins.

Having slept on it though, I realized that I wasn't being fair. So I messed up at dinner, that happens. It isn't the end of my journey.

Let's back up a step. Last night Liz and I drove down to Athens to meet her parents for dinner at Casa Nuevo, a fun Mexican joint which specializes in using locally sourced ingredients and has a fair amount of vegan friendly options. We had to wait for our table, so we ordered a plate of Nachos... "that's ok, I'll only have a few." Then we got to our table and ordered some appetizers and some chips and salsa. This is where I ran into trouble. CN's salsas are of local renown, I had to sample them. And suddenly I had forgotten what I was working towards and was just enjoying myself and the "good" food. Then I ordered an enchillada for my main course, and did remember myself enough to order one with broccoli, mushrooms, and black beans instead of the pulled pork or steak. But all in all I probebly had the second highest calorie and fat meal that I've had in 7 solid weeks.

I'm not going to stay under 350 this way!! 2 days Off Plan in a 3 day window? Right after a 14 day stretch of On Plan days??

But you know what, I've decided not to get all depressed and start a downward spiral. Another weight loss blogger was complaining about having hit a batch of bad days, feeling like she wasn't going to get on plan. From reading her entry I learned two things. 1) the importance of posting about setbacks and not just positive results, and 2) that vacations happen, and its how we deal with them the next day that really matters. As soon as she started focusing on the future rather than regretting the past, she was back on track.

I can't afford to move to Hawaii and spend every day sitting on the beach drinking cocktails. But that doesn't mean that I shouldn't take a vacation now and then. And instead of worrying about all the work I'm not doing, I'm going to just relax and enjoy my vacation, knowing that the real world is waiting for me when I get back.

The same is true with Off Plan days. I can't afford to make them the norm, I can't afford to do them very often, and I certainly can't afford to waste them feeling guilty and angry at myself for slipping up.

So here's the plan. Vacations will be as rare as I can make them, they will be reported to the blog, but they will not derail me completely. And in the long run, I will get to my goal.

how big is too big

2007-10-09T17:29:00.000-04:00

So I've had a lot of experience in deciding that pants are just too damn tight to wear any more. I've never done the reverse. I actually have a pair of pants which are coming right to the cusp of that, and will sooner or later need to make the decision to put them away.

Not that I will get rid of them, they are my biggest "fat pants," and I'll want them down the road. Admit it, everybody who has ever set out to lose weight imagines themselves doing the fat pants photo. Well, I certainly do.

Right now the pants fit me loosely enough that, standing, I can put the base of my thumb against my stomach and the base of my pinky against the inside of the waist band without any stretching the pants or tightening my stomach muscles. Sitting they maybe only have about an inch clearance.

So here's the question. In theory, as long as I keep buying ever shrinking belts, I can continue wearing pants that are much to big for me, I just take them in with the belt. But eventually the waist is not going to be the only problem. So I will need to figure out when they just look baggy on me. Fortunately I have two or three pairs of pants that I've reshrunk into (thank goodness for being a pack rat), so I won't have to go out and immediately buy a whole new wardrobe.

So, in terms of waist, I think I've made pretty impressive progress. I started out wearing pants that were size 58" waist and a little too tight. Tonight I went through my "too small to fit pile" and found a size 56" and two 54" that fit me well, and even my size 52's I could put on and button though it looked too tight on me.

I haven't bought or worn a size 54 since at least the beginning of the third year of lawschool (3 years ago)! I think that while I'm right around the weight that caused me to give up the last time I lost a lot of weight, I'm doing a better job of converting fat into muscle, so I'm getting more change in physical size for a smaller weight loss. I know I didn't get down to wearing my 54s last time.

In other words I'm doing it, well, if not "right," at least more right than ever before. And that's progress.

348.6

2007-10-08T11:57:00.000-04:00

Lots of good news to report today.

So for a while it's been a matter of "when" not "if" I get down below 350, and it happened this weekend! I weighed myself somewhat later in the day than is my norm, and after breakfast instead of before, so that may even be .3 or so high.

Overall, I'm 5.2 down for the week, 44.2 down since August 23, and 26 2/3 % of E.O. '08. Stay tuned maybe as early next week for the 50 lb mark!

So to wrap up the weekend. I'm counting Sunday as a "off plan" day, so my new "on plan" streak record is 14 days. Liz and I agreed to a system whereby every 5 days on plan in a row I get to add a little bit of cash to my new computer fund. ($2 for 5, an additional $4 for 6-10, $8 for 11-15, etc) I've hit day 10 a couple of times now, but this was the first time I had a day 12, let alone a shot at day 15.

Sunday was a close call. I haven't added up my points yet (just got home), but I'm pretty sure I'll be slightly over. Basically I think I made as best of choices as I could have made given the situation, but not quite good enough. Plus, cutting of my streak here and starting over gives me a target to shoot for next time.

We ended up going out for dinner Sunday evening instead of doing the whole holiday meal thing, so that means I had two meals out. Sunday lunch was the worst, because we went to lunch at the Zanesville mall. The only options there are Wendy's, a pizza joint, Taco Bell, and Charlie's (a grilled steak sandwich place). I had a Wendy's taco salad without sour cream, chips, or salad dressing, and a mix of fresh pineapple and grapes, but that's still something like 10-11 points, most of it fat. Then dinner was at this really good local owned Mexican place. I skipped the chips/salsa and had shrimp fajitas. I limited myself to only one tablespoon of the beans (read "lard with some beans in it") and 1/4 cup of the Spanish rice. My Achilles heel at Mexican is warm tortillas, and I did end up having two of them. In what counts as progress for me, I did manage to leave one on my plate.

Workout wise I did a lot better than I had expected. I did get my strength training in Sunday night, because the hotel we stayed in had a set of dumbbells. I started with the 15lbs, because that's what I use at home, and found they were too light for me, and I had to switch up to the 20's, which was a real thrill for me. Then I went back to my room and did my core exercises (crunches and whatnot). Pumped from discovering I had moved up a weight level on the dumbbells, I attempted some pushups. (sort of, pushups working from the knees instead of the toes), and did about 5, which is definitely a personal first. Even as early as middle school I can specifically remember being too heavy to be able to do pushups in gym class.

Then this morning I did 4 sets of 2.5 walk/4.5 jog (.1 mile each, 5 deg incline), and went for a swim. What I've learned from this weekend is that each treadmill runs at a somewhat different speed for the numbers you give it... so when I am away from home I will need to expect to put the speed up or down depending on the personality of the individual machine. After the weekend I'm up to 6.25 miles for October.

Overall, I think it was a positive weekend, and I can't complain with the results!

Hell yeah.

2007-10-08T10:57:00.000-04:00

http://blog.scalejunkie.com/2007/08/stereotypes-and-prejudice.html

Ok, so maybe there are a few others. It seems like it is still PC to entertain stereotypes about homosexuals. But the general idea that discrimination based on obesity is socially acceptable is dead on. Like homosexuality, obesity is considered to be a choice, and therefore fair game. How it is more of a choice than religion, i'm not sure, but that's the popular view.

Of course, I guess if people like me and scale junkie meet our goals, we'll just give more evidence that obesity is a choice. To that, I would say that it is not so much a choice as a condition. Like alcoholism or any other addiction, or most major diseases, I will never be "cured." The best I can ever hope for is remission.

If you haven't done it yet, check out scale junkie's blog (linked to the right)... she has some really powerful and moving stuff!

(I back-timed this post so that my big announcement will stay on top for today :) )

at least one workout

2007-10-07T11:33:00.000-04:00

So I did get my treadmill in again this morning (1 mile averaging 3.3 mpg at 5 deg). Either a) my treadmill under estimates speed, b) the treadmill I was using this morning over estimates, or c) I was walking with a noticeable increase in energy. I pushed myself up to 4.0 mph and was still at a walking pace today, 4 is definitely a jogging pace at home.

And then I did five laps in the pool before heading back to the room.

I am still hoping to get a workout in this evening in Cbus, but at least I'm not going to miss both of my sessions today.

And Comfort inn has hard boiled eggs on their new upgraded continental breakfast. No skim milk though, but I had thought ahead and brought my own.

Anyway, so far the weekend has been 100% on plan. Now for the challenging part :)

video inspiration

2007-10-06T12:29:00.000-04:00

How Jodi Davi lost 162 pounds

"got up this morning for a quick jog..."

2007-10-06T09:05:00.000-04:00

So I'm one of "those" people now, and I couldn't be more proud. I have officially taken my first step into the world of people who get up in the morning to do a jog.

Now, I only jogged .3 miles today ... my plan to introduce jogging is .1 at 2.0 mph, followed by .1 at 4.0, (all at 5.0 incline) then repeat as many times as I can manage, until I am doing a mile every day. Then I'll start breaking the routine up differently so I'm jogging .15 at a stretch, then .2.... until I get up to the point of doing an entire mile at 4.0.

Today I did three sets, so another .6 to my mileage chart (I'm now up to 4.45 for October).

Oh, and no, this doesn't mean I hit 350 and didn't bother telling anyone. I weighed in this morning at 351.8. I have every expectation of getting to report under 350 by next weigh in, but just a little ways to go yet. I just decided that 2 lbs wasn't enough of an excuse to avoid working harder on the treadmill. I also dropped my point goal down to the 350 level at the beginning of the week... though that hasn't really meant anything as I was generally 2-4 points short every day anyway.

Won't be here to post tomorrow... though Liz and I decided to stay in a hotel tonight instead of at my parents, and the hotel has a treadmill, so I'll at least get a morning walk, and maybe a jog in. (I may only walk and not risk damaging the hotel's equipment) And I am planning to come home Sunday night, so I won't be missing Monday morning either! The weekend is shaping up to be better than I expected :)

me at 6 weeks

2007-10-05T17:43:00.000-04:00

Ok, the top photo is obviously a much more posed photo than the one I'm using as a before photo. It's something of an idealized version of what I look like at the moment. Below is another which probably gives a more accurate idea of my size now. Still a long way from where I started, in my own opinion!

paranoia as a hurtle and as a motivator

2007-10-05T13:02:00.000-04:00

So I'll be in Zanesville Saturday night through Monday morning. Which means I'll miss at least my treadmill Sunday morning, maybe Monday morning too... depending when I get home, and likely my Sunday evening workout. I should be able to get in Saturday's before I leave. (Though as an aside, I'll have to remember the gym closes at 4:30 on Saturday!)

As to points... one challenge will be that I'm away from my spreadsheet, and a bigger challenge is that Monday is Thanksgiving in Canada, so Liz's family (her parents are down for the holiday) will likely want to do a Thanksgiving style meal Sunday night. The good news is that they're fairly healthy cooks, the bad news is that they're also really good at it :)

I still haven't quite figured out the whole weight loss thing where it comes to eating with people who don't know I'm trying to lose weight. I mean, obviously I "could" just say, No thanks, I don't want any X, I'm watching my calories.... but I feel somewhat ridiculous doing so. I mean, I know that I've lost 40 lbs in the past 6 weeks, but you can't tell that just by looking at me. I still look like a guy who's at least 150 lbs over weight.

Whenever I order fresh veggies (with no added salt, please) or order off the "light and fit" portion of the menu, I feel somewhat like a fraud. I'm sure you've heard some comedian or whatever comment on the habit of a lot of overweight people to walk into McDonald's, order a big mac, large fry and a "diet" coke. Well, my very physical presence is my "big mac and large fry."

And I even know that it's all in my head. I felt the same way about joining a gym, and everyone there has been nothing but polite to me. And even those people who do judge me, it isn't as if that should have any effect on what I do. And beyond even that... the only way to stop people thinking that way is to lose weight. It isn't as if I wouldn't look equally ridiculous going back to my eating like a teenager days. I can't just wake up tomorrow and leave my fat suit at home.

On a somewhat related point... I sometimes wish that restaurants would just charge for ice water. Not that I'm all that eager to give away my money, but I guess I feel somewhat cheap in the current system. Unless I'm in that extremely rare restaurant that serves skim milk, there is simply nothing on the menu to drink that is both allowed on my diet plan and at all tempting to me. I honestly like water, and I drink a lot of it at meals. So here I am, asking for a fourth, fifth, sixth refill on my free drink. I do try to make it up in the tip, and I guess that's better than the restaurant charging for it when the only real cost is on the server.

This particular neurosis I can somewhat blame on my childhood. Basically, growing up we always got water in restaurants, not because we didn't drink pop (did we ever), but simply because it was free. So as I got out on my own, it was to a certain extent a point of pride to me that I didn't have to worry about that buck or buck and a half extra and could just get pop with my meals. Then I made a decision that I couldn't drink pop any more (back around the time I graduated from lawschool). Ever since then, I've (almost) always had water with meals. And I've always been vaguely unhappy that I was taking advantage of the system.

So moral of the story (looking back at the entire entry)... I'm quite paranoid and care far too much about what other people think of me. Even this blog can be seen as a symptom of that. Or, rather, a means of my using my own weaknesses against myself to produce a positive effect. If I can't show progress or if I stop updating, my own paranoia that the two or three people who had been reading regularly will think poorly of me would shame me into working harder.

So I guess if you can't beat em, join em.

priorities

2007-10-05T10:51:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I had a realization about my priorities. Basically, I think I've made the important shift to seeing getting in a workout as a high priority.

Liz was off yesterday, and wanted to go out golfing as it was likely the last day we would have a chance to for the season. We couldn't go until I got home from work, so we only got in nine holes, but it was fun. I was supposed to be working on a kitchen remodling project last night, so I had initially said I would count the mini round of golf as my workout for the night.

But then when I got home and had dinner... I just couldn't do that. I just had this overwhelming urge to get up and go to the gym.

So on one hand, I slacked on the housework, on the other hand, I got a full workout in before the Y closed for the night. Getting in my workout is a priority. And it needs to stay that way.

And the Indians won... so the fates must have been pleased :)

See, exercising really does work... week 6 results

2007-10-04T06:24:00.000-04:00

This turned out to be my second best week yet! The exercise really worked wonders on my progress. I'm feeling sore today, so this is just the motivation I needed to keep it up.

Anyway, I am down 8.4 lbs on the week, taking me to a grand total of 353.8, which is 39 down from where I started. I am at 23% of the way to my end of 2008 goal.

Still far, far to go!

14 for 14.

2007-10-03T19:07:00.001-04:00

So tomorrow's another weigh in. I have high (or is that low) hopes for this week. Of course, Liz would say I'm setting myself up for disappointment... the more hopeful I am going into a weigh in, the less room I have to be pleasantly surprised. Shrug.

One major accomplishment this week… I completed my entire workout schedule! Now Sunday I did a second treadmill rather than my leg machines as the Y was closed… but I did an afternoon workout, and that's a moral victory, even if it wasn't as good a workout I may have otherwise gotten. For my morning treadmills I've decided to start tracking distance (inspired to do so by Grizzpyre). So for October I'm up to 2.7 miles. I still am doing walking only, at least primarily… I did about a minute of jogging yesterday just to see what it felt like. Even at that I could really feel the loss of weight from a couple of months ago, I just felt a lot more graceful and smooth in my movement, less like a bouncing sack of particularly angry potatoes. I am committed to start mixing in jogging as soon as I hit 350.

Which leads to a bit of a race with myself. I'm curious to see whether I will get to 325 or develop the stamina to jog a full mile first. I'm betting on 325… I can't recall for certain ever being in good enough shape to jog a full mile… not even when I played soccer in highschool… I was a good sprinter, but only for very short distances. On the other hand, back then the problem was that I really wasn't very committed. I mean, I worked as hard as I could at practice, but never spent any time on my own just trying to get into better shape. I certainly didn't get up an hour earlier than I had to so I could get in a run. I also wasn't watching my diet at all (and had I tried, I would have screwed it all to hell… I had some really wacky ideas of healthy diet back then). The healthier diet and the extra exercise should help me build stamina faster than I ever could back in HS. Only one way to find out.

Anyway, 11 hours or so until my week 6 weigh in... good luck everyone!

Halftime!

2007-09-30T18:08:00.000-04:00

So we're half way through the 11 "Fabulous in Fall" challenge. This has been a great motivator for me, and I'll be sad to see it end in another 5.5 weeks. But the blog will continue, so I'm still publicly accountable. (at least in my own head... no idea who's actually reading :) )

So this half week is producing excellent results, though I don't know for sure why. I've been staying under on points, but staying a lot closer to the line than in weeks past. I have been exercising more ... btw, I did get my afternoon workout done yesterday, and will be hopping on the treadmill as soon as I'm finished here. Though even after only a week of having a membership, I am really missing the Y this weekend :)

Anyway, this morning I was at 357.8, putting me up to 35.0 overall!!! (4.4 on the week) I did go ahead and tell L to push my goal out to 50 instead of 25, but I'm considering sending her another e-mail to move it to 60. 50 (which will take me to 342.8) should be fairly easy now that I only have 15 to go with 5.5 weeks left... though 60 is a stretch. It would mean doing almost as well in the second half as the first.

So the question is whether I would rather have a goal I'm pretty confident I can meet... and avoid the discouragement that would come in not reaching my goal... or if I would rather have a goal that would make me push really hard in the last week to try to reach it, and run the risk of not getting there.

Because I know I've done damn well on this challenge regardless of the final goal (after all, I've already blown the original goal out of the water), right now I'm leaning towards putting the goal just out of comfortable reach and pushing myself to reach it. Because I may not reach this new target, but I would hardly call it a failure.

Oh, and this most recent reading means that I've lost 21% of the weight I need to lose for End Obesity in 2008! And even if I just stay level for the next three days and end the week where I am right now, my pace for the long term goal drops to 2 lbs a week.

With 350 within shooting distance for next week, I want to establish a few new goalposts for the coming months. I'm pretty sure that somewhere between 350 and 345, I will have re-lost all the weight that I regained after my first serious diet in 2005, and will be working on new ground from that point on. Then at roughly 310-315 I will be down to my high school graduation weight, and anything beyond that will put me at least overweight I've been in my adult life. Stay Tuned!

hodgepoge of random thoughts

2007-09-28T20:28:00.000-04:00

So I had expected that one nice side benefit of my diet would be that Liz and I would start digging ourselves out of credit card debt a little faster, because I wouldn't be spending so much on junk food. This month is decidedly not a testament to that.

Now, to be fair, we spent a lot on the Niagara trip and the big barbecue, and the join up fees at the gym, and buying gym clothes and gym shoes that all won't be repeated every month.

So I'm not worried so much as disappointed. I had looked forward to smaller bills at the end of the month as another morale boost, and I'm not getting it.

But everything else is going according to plan, so I can't complain.

So far this (calender) week I've been 6/6 on my morning treadmill (doing full miles on Sunday and Wednesday), and I've made 4/5 of my evening workouts at the Y. I missed Wednesday because I was stuck in Columbus. I'm actually going to miss going to the Y tomorrow (they're closed for some minor remodeling) and again Sunday (they're only open Sundays in the winter), but I will do a upper body workout here tomorrow and maybe a second session on the treadmill Sunday to make up for the missed leg workout.

I've also been at or under points every day since getting back from the vacation, including counting up all of my points from the BBQ.

I'm making a concerted effort not to weigh myself until at least Sunday morning, because I spent all last (challenge) week weighing myself every morning as soon as I rolled out of bed. It was fun in that I was down every day, but then frustrating because I had a sudden upswing at the end of the week. (I had been down to almost 9 down on the week). So only doing a midweek and a end of the week report was the deal I managed to strike with myself.

It's sad though, I'm craving weighing myself right now almost as bad as I have craved any non-point-friendly food throughout this diet. I am so quick to develop addictions it is pathetic. Thank God I never tried smoking!

While I've been good at points, I feel as if I could be doing a lot better on individual food choices. Liz made up some coke cake cupcakes for me (thanks again for the tip!), and with the particular cake mix (organic from Whole Foods) and the smallish cupcakes that we made, they work out to only 1.6 points each. But they don't have any fiber or protein or omega 3's or anything... they're just purely empty calories. So they don't push me past my points goal, but they do fill up space on my chart that could be better used getting good vitamins and proteins.

My deal with myself is that I can only have one as dessert to a healthy meal, with a glass of skim milk, and only one a day. I did break down and have two yesterday, so I refused to have one today.

Another food choice issue is making sure i have enough protein. I've never been so close to being a vegetarian in my life. Not that there's ever any chance of me becoming one in earnest. But the only meat I've had in the past four days was the shrimp in my tv dinner at lunch today. I've been finding proteins in milk, eggs, cheese, and beans mostly, but I think I need to work harder at making sure that I am getting enough of those if I'm going to continue cutting meat out of my diet.

Another challenge is that I don't think I'm drinking enough water. Which is odd... drinking lots and lots of water is like the only healthy habit I had back before I ever even thought about weight loss. I'm used to being always thirsty, and I do my very best to always keep water on hand. Therefore I haven't bothered tracking my intake, as I just knew intuitively that I drink far more water than I need. But sitting down to think about it the other day I began to question that assumption. I think I will start actually adding water to my spreadsheet for the next couple of days and try to find out.

Ok, so this has rambled on enough. Thank you so much for checking in with my progress and for all of your support!

Lunch in Cbus?

2007-09-28T08:17:00.000-04:00

I will be in Columbus this Sunday, but have no real plans other than just to be able to hang out with Liz for her commute. If anybody who reads my blog from the Cbus area is free and would like to meet up for lunch (especially if you have any WW friendly lunch ideas) shoot me an e-mail (mgibbonscamp at gmail .com) so we can get together.

Shamelessly Stolen Insperational Material

2007-09-27T20:58:00.000-04:00

Text in plain type is stolen from Becky's Bar and Grill, and in bold is my own comments on it:

------------------------------------------
I say the next time you feel “[following WW's] is Too Hard” consider how hard it was/is to:

Shop in Specialty Clothing Stores (Layne Bryant, The Avenue, Catherine’s) your choices are limited.

For me it is Casual Male XL (formerly Casual Male Big and Tall), which is the only place I can buy any clothing other than socks.

Missing Out on Pool Parties because you're too embarrassed to wear a bathing suit in front of your friends.

I have definitely done this. I love to swim (ok, so I love to play in the pool, not exactly swim), but I've only done so twice in the past three years (both times at Niagara when Liz and I had the hotel pool to ourselves) or maybe even longer than that. It's not so much my friends I'm ashamed of, but the way I know I look even to complete strangers. I know I'm disgusting, and I don't want to ruin other people's time in the pool... so I just stay away.

Not being able to wear your favorite outfit because it's too small.

Not wanting to hug those close to you because you don't want them to feel your rolls of fat.

Not going to the movies, because squeezing into the seats for 90 minutes is too uncomfortable.

Not dancing at weddings because you don't want people staring at the "fat chick" on the dance floor.

At work, twice a year, we have retreats at state parks for one and a half days, and the night between the two days always involves a DJ/dancing in the bar from like 9-1. I have managed to keep myself tipsy enough at two of the four I've attended to get myself out on the floor and just have fun. The first of the four I skipped entirely and hid in my room all night, the third there wasn't a decent bar and I was too sober/self conscious. There's one other guy, a Managing attorney, who is almost (but not quite) as overweight as me, but he has a lot more confidence than I do. And I hear my friends/coworkers making fun of him at times, and I know they'd think the same about me if we weren't friends (or maybe just if I weren't in the conversation)

Not attending family gatherings because you don’t want people to see how big you’ve gotten.

Not going to a picnic or summer barbecue because you’re afraid the lawn furniture won’t hold you.

I have broken a number of our folding chairs at home, [over time, not like all at once] and I refuse to sit in chairs which aren't either metal or really solid wood.

Not attending your high school reunion because you don't want old boyfriends seeing how much weight you've put on. Or old friends thinking "what happened to her?"

For me, I was already fat in high school... and it was at least part of why I don't think there is a single person who will be disappointed that I didn't show for the reunion. I will only go to my 10 year (next Spring) if I feel that I've lost enough weight to surprise people.

Having to ask for a seatbelt extension on the airplane.

I think i've said before in this blog... I do whatever possible to avoid flying because I'm afraid they'll make me purchase two seats.

Yes, journaling, weighing and measuring your food, exercising, and attending weekly meetings is hard but being over weight is much harder and so much lonelier.

Hell yes.

Me at the end of week 4

2007-09-27T19:40:00.000-04:00

I didn't know this photo was being taken. In the original, I'm just in the background of a general crowd shot, but it isn't half bad for all that that. I've cropped it so Its just me.

This was taken September 20, 2007. That morning I had weighted in at 368.3

week five roundup

2007-09-27T07:08:00.000-04:00

So I had a mixed results kind of day yesterday. I thought I was doing fairly well on food, though I ended up being stuck in Cbus too late to make it home for my trip to the Y. But I ended up being just slightly up from Tuesday, after a week of steady declines. On the bright side, I found a store where I could buy myself a few pairs of gym shorts, so now I don't have to wash laundry every single time I go to the Y :)

Today's Status:

Weight: 362.2, down 6.1 on the week, 30.6 overall.

My target pace for End Obesity in 2008 is still 2.1

trying to estimate points

2007-09-26T16:42:00.000-04:00

I am somewhat stumped on doing my points for lunch today. I had lunch at the North Markets, at the Mediterranean stand. They make this stuff they call spinach souffle, which is basically spinach, feta, peppers, garlic, and onions. I'm sure it has some Olive oil in it, and it baked in such a way that it all sticks together, so I'm guessing some amount of egg.

Has anybody made something like this and can forward me a recipe so I can figure out my points?

If you could bottle it, you'd make a billion dollars

2007-09-25T06:15:00.000-04:00

So I can't really explain my recent enthusiasm or my recent results, except in terms of each other. Where the energy and the focus has been coming from is open to more debate. My best guess is that doing well while on vacation somewhat shocked me into a more deep down, instinctive confidence in myself and my ability to do this. Plus, I have more energy generally right now than I have had for a long time.

Which, as an aside... if Calories are a unit of energy, and we eat food to get energy, why is it that dieting causes a increase in energy level? Liz said yesterday that it was simply a matter that I had a lot less weight to carry around than I did before, and that may be part of it. But not all... I really feel just bouncy and upbeat most of the day.... like I want to start dancing or jogging in place just to burn off the extra energy or something.

Anyway, going back to the theory that my enthusiasm is generating my results and my results are generating my enthusiasm... today I'm down to just under 362. Two days left to go for the week, and I'm already past 6 lbs on the week!

On the down side, at some point i HAVE to slow down. I figure that right now, I have so much extra weight that the dangers in losing too fast are nothing compared to the dangers of carrying around the weight... and I just assumed I would slow way down after the first couple of weeks as my body got used to the new diet and rebelled against the effort. That clearly hasn't happened yet.

I don't know where, but somewhere down the road there'll come a time where it is just more unhealthy to lose five or six pounds a week than it is to carry that extra weight. If my strange and unprecedented (for me, that is) sharp decline hasn't begun to level out on its own by then, I'll have to rethink some of my strategies.

But for right now, I'm loving it!

----------------------------------------------

Liz and I found this particularly unflattering photo of me from last summer, to post as a "before" photo. We're at my parent's house, and Liz talked me into wearing her sunhat for a photo. The way I'm sitting really emphasizes my enormous gut, so it is slightly exaggerated (but not as much as I'd like to pretend). You see now why there aren't many photos of me from this period... I can barely stand to look at ones like this myself.

joining up

2007-09-24T21:12:00.000-04:00

Today has just been a red letter day for my weight loss goals. I was feeling good about my progress and confident in myself, so Liz and I went and got a membership at the local Y. (Besides, some of the comments I got in response to my entry on joining a gym helped me decide that I was being unduly paranoid.) Liz is happy because she can go swimming in their indoor pool, and I'm pleased with their exercise room.

Today was a day off from strength training, so I only did a couple of short sets on the stationary bike (the exact same model I used the three days in Niagara), and tried out the various leg muscle machines. Tomorrow I'll start experimenting with the various upper body work out machines, and try and develop myself a workout.

My exercise schedule is now: treadmill in the morning every day, then evening workouts every day, alternating bike/legs and upper body workouts. Of course this will have to be flexible where my schedule simply doesn't allow this much time devoted to the gym... but my theory is that I'm doing enough that I can afford to miss one or two every now and again, as long as I always go back as soon as possible.

And once I hit 350 I'm going to start adding in some jogging to my treadmill workout every day. My plan is to try working my way up to running in a couple of 5 k's in 2008, and we'll see where to go from there.

I'm a gym member, can you believe it?

outed

2007-09-24T09:39:00.001-04:00

Another big milestone happened just ten minutes ago. For the first time someone who didn't know I was on a diet complimented me on my weight loss :) One of the secretaries in the office (who is a refreshingly frank and outspoken person) stopped me in the hall and said "hey, you've lost a lot of weight, haven't you?" So I've been outed at least somewhat at work now, which may make it a little easier to stick to the diet at group functions, if it means that people are less likely to be offended if I don't share in their snacks or if people are less quick to offer desserts to me.

But most importantly to me... It's the first concrete confirmation I have that my progress is starting to change my appearance. (Liz has said I look better, but I always have to wonder whether that's just because she knows I'm making progress and need the affirmation).

And in related news, the shirt, pants, and belt I'm wearing today were all in the "too tight to wear" pile at the beginning of the challenge.

ps. if you don't read the blog on the weekend, scroll down... i've got about five posts since Saturday.

is it midweek already?

2007-09-24T06:15:00.000-04:00

This is a short week due to my late weigh in last week, so it is already time for the midweek report. I'm marching along at a great pace this week! I've already passed 365, so down to less than 15 to go before the big 350 checkpoint. I almost said goalpost, but that's not right, my total goal is much further. This is just the first milestone along the way.

Speaking of ultimate goal, I have set a very very challenging, but ultimately possible goal for myself. I'm sure everyone who has tried to lose weight has used, at some point in their lives, a BMI calculator to gage where they are. At 6'1", and an insane number of pounds, I am of course far into the "morbidly obese" category. I've been tracking my estimated bmi as I go along, and it is plummeting nicely right along next to my weight.

And that brings me to the big goal. I'm calling it "End Obesity in 2008."

For my height, my estimated bmi will go from "obese" to "overweight" at 227 lbs. If I continue to keep my average loss per week as high as 2.1, I will hit 227 on Christmas day, 2008. Right now, even excluding that 12.8 first week, I have been averaging 3.93333 per week. And I'm already at just over 3 for this week, and we're only half way through.

Now, I have no way to know for sure that this will happen. After all, losing the ten pounds from 370 to 360 has got to be easier than the ten pounds from 237 to 227. I will have to lose the first 100 pretty fast, to allow myself the time to lose the remaining pounds more gradually. It will require a lot of hard work, a lot of sacrifice, and a lot of believing that I can do this.

And, as always, a lot of support from my friends and fellow travelers.

Another photo from Niagara, Liz likes to play with the timed photo feature... she claims its the only way to get a good photo of her.

my "new" shirt

2007-09-23T15:43:00.000-04:00

Liz and I are heading out to do some shopping, and I am wearing a shirt that five minutes ago was in my "too small to fit anymore" pile. :)

Dieting sucks... but losing weight is a blast!